They all do a bit. The good ones at least. The ones who can taste blood when they start talking about cutting people open and changing their bodies with small knives, drills, robot hands, and other instruments.

Maybe. Rock and roll. Certainly. She’s rail thin with black hair and shark eyes that go wide when she talks about surgery. But I do wonder what she does for kicks?

One of my closest friends is a surgeon, I call her “Doctor Robot Surgery” because that’s what she does. And her eyes flash too.

There perhaps is nowhere in the world more bro-y than the ortho wing of a hospital. They’re all bros and lady bros and I’m sure they all golf together whenever they aren’t slicing open legs, arms, and resetting bones.

But my surgeon, I’m not sure. She was in a skin tight, all-black outfit. Biker?

“Sure.”

She continued to talk to me as the nurse, medical assistant, and student resident all left the room on search of juice.

I could barely hear what she was saying but continued to nod and reply “Okay” to basic questions.

They staff returned with water.

“No juice.”

“Ok bro.”

Bro. Bros.

The foot and leg, now free from their post-op incubation, burned, tingled, sent sharp pains to my brain and this gush of too many sensations caused me to white out. As I fainted, I told the doctor, “Hey, I’m starting to white out.”

“Do you want to lie down?” she replied.

“Yeah, ok.”

“Juice?”

Blue, purple, black bruises where my arch used to be, streaks, almost waves of purple along the calf where they cut the fascia that holds a too-tight muscle. And the real eye-sore – the stitch itself at the back of the heel. What a mangled, gnarly mess of skin, stitches, and dried blood.

Pain constant, immobility certain, everyone told me, “feet take longer than you think they will.” Truly. I wasn’t expecting to be up and hopping but I’d hoped for a more linear progression with pain. Sharpness comes at random, dullness lingering on.

And loud sounds, they make it all worse.

Today my old friend returns as heartache and loneliness creep in but otherwise, no withdrawal symptoms, no real change except the days seem longer and there’s not much to look forward to.

True also of convalescence. It’s bitterly cold here and I’ve only been outside twice on my knee bike.

And physically so rewarding. I snarfle on her, she snarfles on me. I feed her, she drools, spits up, slobbers on me. I hold her, she nuzzles her head on me.

I’m in love, love like I’ve never been loved before.

She’s holding a toy with a wooden disc, string, and plastic bit on the end. As I narrate the room, the view, she alternates between eating the toy and babbling back at me.

I’d forgotten infancy until my second daughter arrived. What a wonderful phase- Exploration, teaching, feeding, holding.