Today I got a new addition to my massive stash of orthopedic devices. A cane. A CANE?? I'm just 9 days shy of turning 45 and I've got myself a good old geriatric cane. Oh joy.

In November 2007, I had my first of two knee surgeries after a car accident left my knee in disrepair. I've spent the last 6 months on crutches and in a variety of braces ranging from a full leg hellish-contraption to my current sleek German engineered brace. It might be engineered as well as a BMW but it sure doesn't make me move that fast. It just helps my knee from going where it shouldn't.

When I came home from the hospital in November I was given a walker. I truly thought I'd never leave the confines of my house for fear someone might mistake me for a patient who escaped from the Happy Hills Nursing Home. I really don't have much of an ego but whatever ego I did have was squelched immediately when I took my first steps with my walker while wearing my fuzzy bathrobe. All I was missing were tennis balls on the bottom of each leg and a pair of cataract sunglasses. Instead I took my painkillers as prescribed so that I wouldn't realize that I not only had a leg that hurt worse than childbirth but I could also easily win an audition for The Golden Girls.

A few weeks later I was upgraded to crutches. I felt young again. Well, sort of. I still moved slower than a dead turtle and it took me at least 10 minutes to get down the icy front steps when I had to leave the house. At least I could pretend I had a skiing accident or something glamorous....like falling off of high heels while I did Salsa dancing. The operative word here is "pretend".

Six months later the crutches no longer had that youthful appeal I thought they did. My children thought they looked "fun"....I wanted to melt them with a torch and turn them into a sculpture. I had an additional surgery in April which slowed me down again, but I refused to give in to a wheelchair or go back to the walker from hell. I stuck with the crutches and thankfully, they stood by me even though I cursed them on a daily basis.

Today, I was upgraded....and degraded in a way. My surgeon gave me a cane and told me to "go slow" but keep the crutches "just in case". Go slow? How much slower can I go?  I had to be retrained on how to walk with this skinny gray stick that made me feel about as confident as I did when I first walked in high heels. Oh how I miss my high heels.

So, I'm trying this cane out and hoping that soon I'll be walking a little more like a lady and a little less like Herman Munster. At least I know when I am 80 and the doctor recommends a walker or a cane I can say "Hey, I'm a pro with this stuff...." and I'll get the gold medal in the Senior Walker Olympics.

" mce_src="" alt="" border="" hspace="" vspace="" width="" height="" align="bottom" />