“Good job with the healing!”

That's the enthusiastic—if slightly puzzling—pronouncement of Dr. Chou after six and a half months. The parts in between are not very exciting. A few highlights:

• If the alternative is really icky, you will figure out how to use the toilet in your small, cramped bathroom that doesn't really have room for a walker.
• Never underestimate the importance of a tray on a walker. A person on crutches has three legs and no hands.
• If you must break a leg, break the left one and drive an automatic.
• If you go into an appointment preparing to complain about how you still have frequent but tolerable pain when walking, and the first thing the nurse says is, “You're getting around without crutches! That's great!” … you may decide to change your plan.
• Unlike some folks, I am not a candidate to have the hardware in my leg removed. The phrase “major excavation” was used.

Stanford billed my insurance company for about $140,000 and the insurance paid a negotiated rate of about $65,000. All sorts of interesting questions come to mind about people without insurance and who pays retail. I may never be completely comfortable lying on my left side, because of said hardware. And I have a slight limp that seems to persist even when I have no pain (and, yes, I still have some pain, although the level is low and the frequency is decreasing). But I have a lot my strength back and I've gotten back in the saddle. It will be a while before my riding muscles and reflexes are back to where they were, but it's a start.