My favorite part about the family rotation was everyone getting their own emotional moment when they saw Josh walking. I loved taking our helpers to physical therapy. I would sit them down in just the right spot so they could see how far Josh could walk. I would watch everyone’s reaction out of the corner of my eye like I was watching a child being surprised with a puppy. Josh’s physical therapy created most of the content we shared online—Josh walking, throwing a football, riding a hand cycle, and so on. The response was amazing. People from all over the world would tell us they started their business meetings with videos of Josh as their “Monday motivation.” Even churches were pausing their sermons to show these videos to their congregation. We lived and planned to spread encouragement every day in physical therapy.
The hard part was everything our followers didn’t see. At this point, Josh could walk for about five minutes at a time, and then he would have to sit. While seeing him walk every day was miraculous for me, it seemed like every step he took would be one minute of misery later. Josh would be in his legs for about half an hour, then go back to our room needing ice, pain meds, and massages. His legs were unnaturally red and blistered for hours after just a few minutes of walking. Each stride responsible for moving seventeen pounds of steel, plastic, and titanium created rigid soreness in his hips. In the back of my mind, I knew walking would get easier, but would his legs ever feel right? What were they supposed to feel like? Was there just a level of daily pain he would live with from then on? Does anyone ever say that they are comfortable in prostheses? No prior experience is a huge blessing sometimes, but in the back of every amputee’s mind, does “feeling better” just mean it hurts somewhere else?
Life continued to have its highs and lows. Shortly after receiving his legs, Josh had his skin graft surgery to cover the infected donor site. The donor for the donor site was coming from his hip area. He would have to rest for a few days, which meant no walking. Josh wasn’t loving that, but I was so thankful his back would finally be closed. The day after the surgery, Josh’s hip donor site was really hurting him. His symptoms reminded me of how I felt when I had my appendix removed in sixth grade. I remember feeling like a sneeze would bust my guts open. The next day, Josh’s pain had increased and his hip incision was swollen and hard. After a full day of trying to relieve his pain, the doctors decided to take him back for an emergency surgery around 6:00 p.m. Surprise! Josh had a hematoma the size of a tennis ball behind the incision. It was drained and he was given pain medication to get him through the weekend. Maybe this will be the last surgery, I thought for the hundredth time. I hated that Josh had to have another procedure done, but in hindsight, I think it kept Josh from overdoing it in PT on new prostheses and with a fresh skin graft on his back. Josh had proven he was not able to take things slow, and we could not afford for anything to upset the skin graft or the healing scar on his hip.
It was essential for Josh to take time to heal slowly but healthily, because our social calendar was starting to fill up. We had gone from our days “socializing” with doctors and nurses and therapists to actual socializing with friends, new and old. Some amazing things happened: Our friends from down the hall, Jenn and Drew, had their first baby. I was there to take pictures and to welcome baby Easton Mullee into the world. Josh and I also finally got to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park with his mother, Tori and Andrew Smith, and our occupational therapist, Captain Johnson. They treated us like royalty. Josh walked onto the field on his own, and then we got to eat in the owner’s box during the game. We had steak and lobster and then had dessert brought to us in our seats. We sang “Sweet Caroline” just like any respectable Red Sox fan would and loved every minute of our time in that ballpark. We were finally doing something “normal” and not rushing to the ICU instead. Josh also had his first public fall during the dinner.
JOSH
Yawkey Way, the Green Monster, watching David Ortiz take batting practice… This was living the dream! All the walking I had been doing
