Leaving rehab meant returning to "Home Sweet Home"

I think when I crashed, nobody thought I'd ever return home. Never mind the fact that in those first couple of days, nobody was sure I'd leave the hospital still breathing, but getting home became something of a quiet driving force for me. It became a goal. Luckily for me, a goal happily reached. 

The doc rotating through the hospital, was worried about the still healing wound on my right knee. It was on the tibia, just below the kneecap. She was worried the pressure from the prosthesis would worsen the wound, and was moving toward delaying the use of my leg.

The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that a patient can refuse treatment . . . So I protested politely but firmly telling her there was no freaking way that anything was going to delay my using my shiny new leg . . . nothing.

Waiting for the wound to heal could take, well, weeks more . . . no way. Not after a few awkward steps with that new leg.

So I agreed to take the prosthesis off if I had to sit with my knee bent for any length of time. (The bent knee would push my wound into the front of the socket.) So with those few limited steps, there was now more than just hope for me. I’d felt I could return home with a prosthesis, but in the back of my mind I knew that was a hope and not necessarily a reality.

Lying in the hospital as the end of my stay approached, I knew my goal of getting back to my house would, for better or worse, be met. There were times when I hoped it would, then worried it would never happen. I think when I first crashed, nobody around me felt I was going to return home . . . they were worried about my returning anywhere. So as you lie there day after day and night after night, you do wonder whether or not it would have been better to just throw in the hand and die. I was told that’s what I said before I got to the ambulance months earlier . . . just leave me here.

But time goes on and you focus more clearly . . . your family and friends . . . things you want to do . . . things you want to see. And getting home becomes the goal . . . a reason, if you will to get better.

I did. And with a few modifications inside . . . three doors widened and a ramp installed from the living room into the hallway leading to my bedroom . . . it really became home sweet home.