Slowly slowly I am moving out of weeks of stasis, taking unaided steps with the right leg in a tight CAM boot, 24/7 for the next six weeks at least, trying not to be fearful, trying to ban all thoughts of what could possibly go wrong now. The curse of living with a chronic disease makes it hard to trust my body and her healing powers, even when the xrays show how nicely my bones have fused.
Still attached to the crutches and the little walker and the knee scooter, week seven after the accident. It's exhausting. And the daily 100mg of aspirin DVT prophylaxis is waking up the ulcerative colitis. But honestly, that's the least of my worries.
I booked my flight home including wheelchair assistance, managed to speak to real people of both of the involved airlines, they all promised to deliver me relaxed and supported to the man waiting at arrival. I'll leave in 19 days. The grandchild cried when I confirmed it.
Right now I want to wrap myself in cotton wool and hide, avoiding any risks that could throw all plans out of the window again.
What else happened? A week ago, we were woken up early in the black of night on a Monday morning at 3 am with heavy rain hammering the house. And by hammering I mean loud hammering, foundation shaking hammering. We checked the house, windows, roof, all safe and dry, peered outside, called our neighbours, a flood of torchlights, shouts and then the fire trucks, sirens, loudspeaker warnings, evacuations, cars piling up at the bottom of our quiet cul-de-sac, a neighbour carried on a rescue float on a river that normally is a quiet street where kids skate and do bicycle stunts. Much damage, unprecedented amounts of rain, even the NYT reported on it, several houses evacuated, workers everywhere, people arriving with sandwiches, soup and scones and big flasks of coffee all day, all week and they still do. I mind an evacuated old dog, read storybooks to bewildered children sitting around me, hand out snacks and marvel at Wellington's pragmatic neighbourhood response. Our house, over 100 years old, sits up high, there are 46 steep and old steps from the street to the front door (I have counted them several times by now as I was transported with my non weight bearing cast by the ambulance crews) and like most of our neighbours on this side of the street, the deluge did not affect us. The worst story so far from a couple who woke because the bed was filling up with water and when they ran to the baby's room the water was just about to wash over the cot completely. A second later, he said shivering, a second later.
Unprecedented amount of rain. Flash floods, landslides. You can see a cyclone, a hurricane on the satellite, you can prepare for it. But for these localised pockets of torrential downpour there are no models to provide specific warnings hours in advance. This is the shape of things to come. We had 70-110mm of rain in less than one hour, that is ten times the amount of a "normal" heavy downpour.
What next, joked one neighbour yesterday, a plague of locust?