Loss of Innocence Part XXXI

I do not know how many people know that I was shot two months ago. I was standing at a corner waiting for a taxi when I heard a screech, a muffled cry, then a burning in my foot and across my thigh. I felt no pain. It was almost ethereal and in what seemed slow motion the rest of the events occurred, my assailant running behind my back, my brother being called by me, the ride to the clinic, then the hospital and the doctor joking about my having to live for the next hundred years with a bullet in my foot. 1

Time only began to speed up as my grandmother wheeled her chair toward me that morning as I lay on the daybed in my house. I remember everything but its more like a movie but for the pain and my inability to drop my foot below thirty degrees. It was a severe pain that my antibiotics and painkillers just managed to control when it became too maddening. I was a living bullet case now. The slug was embedded in my flesh and despite the pain I was lucky. There was nothing the doctors said that they could do for me. I had to find my way around in pain and bleeding and desolate. 2

I could barely bathe myself every movement would set off that excruciating pain that had me chewing pain killers like tic-tac and my Granny was there every second asking if I was ok. Every time I looked up or woke up she was sitting in her wheelchair at the foot of my day bed staring at my injured leg, willing it to heal. She said so too, 'I want it to just pop out!' This despite of the fact that I told her that it happening so soon would be more hazardous for me than leaving it in my foot. It was scary, sometimes, I would open my eyes, (I didn’t sleep much for the first month) to see her eyes on me. This always caused me to jump, because it was three o’clock in the morning.  She meant well but she creeped me out! 3

In time she stopped but I could still feel her staring at me every time she passed on mornings. She would say things like “why are you getting up sit down”, “use my old wheelchair, don’t use your crutches”, ”do not stand up, let someone do that for you.” All of which flew in the advice of my doctor who commanded me to walk and put pressure on my frequently swollen foot. Of course she didn’t care she only wanted me to stop hurting and for her I was in the least pain when I was lying down, quiet.4