Roll, step, HOP!  Roll, step, HOP!

Only a week after my surgery for heel bone spurs, this awkward, noisy gait is my new trademark. I am impatient to drop this walker, ditch the leg hardware and run around at my former frenetic pace. My walking is now at a halting yet staccato 3/4 beat and too jarring for this liturgical musician’s internal sound track; I much prefer my former imitation of the 2/4, vivace, 144-beats-per-minute rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Flight of the Bumble-Bee."

(For you non-musicians, let me give you a Jersey driving equivalent. My former pace was much like travelling full throttle on the Turnpike; this new stop-start pace is akin to the aggravation of fighting shore traffic on the Parkway on a sunny summer weekend.)

I really have no cause for complaint. God, indeed, was merciful: less than 24 hours after my surgery, I was weak but relatively pain-free as I stood in church at the podium to cantor the vigil Mass.  By the smiles of the congregation, none of us failed to see the irony as I sang the 32nd Psalm wherein the narrator declares, “I turn to you in times of trouble” and led the hymn “There is a balm in Gilead/To make the wounded whole” while wobbling on one good leg.  

Losing my balance while using the crutches and the unyielding, heavy fiberglass cast convinced me to use a wheeled walker to get around. Initially I thought to emulate the old MTV show “Pimp My Ride” by renovating the contraption with racing stripes, a bicycle bell and a small metal license plate with my name, but I showed admirable restraint. I made a more dignified accommodation by lashing a small fanny pack to the front. The pouch holds my cell phone, a comb, and car keys, while its side holsters keep cold water bottles at the ready.

Since my hands hurt from their tight grip on the walker, I briefly considered wearing bicycle racing gloves in the hopes that onlookers might think me a directionally challenged Tour de France competitor, but decided to clutch small potholders issued by my local pizza parlor. (Since the restaurant’s logo has been pressing against my palms, I have been perpetually hungry for a small pepperoni with broccoli pie.) Lastly, rather than a purse and choir bag stuffed with hymnals and sheet music, I consolidated what I needed each day into a silver and white backpack slung over my shoulder. All systems go.

A week later I had my first post-operative visit with my tree surgeon (or at least that’s what the bone saw he wielded made him aurally resemble back in the operating room.) I prayed the rosary sans beads in the waiting room, counting off the “Hail Mary” prayers by tapping on the walker. “Please give me the right words to say, and the doctor an open mind, so I can ditch this cast!” I begged.  When the nurse called my name, I stood up quickly and decided to leave the decision in God’s hands (with a little input from me).

Summoning the skills I honed during my former career in sales, and trained in positive visualization, I entered the examination room determined to be positive yet firm in the quest to remove the white rigid sarcophagus from my leg permanently. My tricked-out walker and I nearly sped into the room; I sat down, smiled sweetly, looked the doctor right in the eye, then folded, spindled and nearly mutilated the Eighth Commandment as I recounted a fictionalized version of the week’s physical activity and pain level. I concluded this confession-worthy soliloquy with, “Once this cast is off my leg, we will negotiate about what will go back on.”

The doctor smiled at my naiveté and said he knew his patients always did more than they admitted (rats, look like he took the same sales course!) but he would make a decision once he examined my heel. His assistant flicked on a shop-vacuum-type machine with a hose and a little circulating saw (check this week's home improvement store circular) and stepped towards me saying, "Let's peel this thing off." I rejoiced, "Oh, goody, we're opening up King Tut's tomb!" and loved the feeling of fresh air on my skin as the fiberglass cast was cut away and the bandages peeled back to reveal my leg. 
 
My surgeon was pleased with the look of his handiwork; after sternly admonishing me not to take a single unprotected step, he wrapped the leg in Ace bandages and told me I had graduated to a CAM walker boot. This large silver-and-white vinyl and Velcro contraption might resemble a skier’s boot sans the bottom clips to those of you of a more rational bent, but I had a more whimsical outlook. Immediately I flashed back to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers cartoons. Rather than admit it is a bulky, heavy, constrictive shoe, I envisioned it as part of the uniform of a superhero.  All I need is a helmet and a cool theme song and I can join my multi-colored buddies in saving the universe once again (if I can get them to beam me my super powers back from my home planet). I have told multiple parishioners of my observations, and a number of them have begun giving me the Power Rangers salute as I hobble by.

Roll, step, HOP!  Roll, step, HOP!  My Power Rangers boot and festooned walker aside, I am tired of this slower gait. I can remove the CAM walker once a day, but the words “not a single, unprotected step” echo in my ears and keep me seated. The heavy boot does not lend itself to grace nor beauty, and the roll, step, HOP is my new rhythm.

Still in search of a new internal theme song to drown out the walker, the only 3/4 staccato beat song I could conjure was the old Mary Poppins tune “Step in Time”, though I don’t envision myself dancing across the rooftops of London a la Dick Van Dyke.

Then I remembered a song I learned at a long-ago choral festival, “Take a Step”. The song’s lyrics were inspired by the biblical story of Christ’s beckoning to a skeptic Peter to walk across a stormy sea to him and to safety (Mt. 14:22-33). 

“Weary, exhausted, down to the bone,
No one to follow, you’re out on your own,
Only yourself, you must go it alone
Into the uncertainty of the unknown.
Take a step, Take a step to Jesus…..and you will be saved!”
(© 1990, Jeremy Young, G.I.A. Publications, Inc.)

So, this is my new internal musical reminder.  My physician’s admonition to take “not a single, unprotected step," though intended as a medical warning, can be transferred to my prayer life as well. Just as Peter needed to trust Jesus that he would be buoyed by faith as he walked on the water, I will continue to trust God will walk alongside me as I step into whatever future challenges come my way…. Power Rangers boot or not.