I had thought that going up and down stairs on crutches was “no big deal” until Nina’s surgery and the requirement that she put NO weight on her left foot at all. How to get her into and out of the house proved to be a very difficult problem. The YouTube videos all featured little tiny people who were trim and fit just bouncing up and down the stairs. In real life, that just doesn’t work.

When we came home from her surgery, I picked up a wheel chair on rent from Maag’s Drug Store and enlisted the help of some friends to pull her up the front steps into the house. There is one 7” step to a landing, then four more 7” steps to the front porch, and a final 7 ½” step over the threshold and into the house. It took three of us to maneuver through the process, learning how to do it while trying not to drop her!

Two weeks later on March 22nd, it was time to go back to Salt Lake City for her checkup. We decided to go down the back steps in the garage which worked fairly well. The workable process turned out to be (1) put the crutches on the next step down, (2) put the bad (left) foot out, (3) trust in God, the crutches, and a nearby assistant (me) and hop down one step without going too far and falling forward and not hesitating such that she would fall backward. It took between a minute and a minute and a half to do each of the five stairs.

Coming back we decided to use the back steps again and she would try to go up on her crutches. That didn’t work. I then had her put her arm on my shoulders so I could help lift. Eventually we got it to work, but that required putting her left toe down to help stabilize while trying to ignore the sharp stabs of pain up the left leg.

That process worked well enough that the following Sunday (March 30th) Nina felt ready to go to Church. The process of going down the garage steps went a bit faster, but not without a lot of maneuvering around. We had a nice time in Church. Once out, Nina felt we should take advantage of the time and make a surprise visit to my mother in Soda Springs. So, after Church was over, we headed east.

The visit was definitely a surprise! Mother was able to see the kneeling scooter that Nina was using, look at the incision and the healing progress. We had a very nice visit.

The return home was another difficult problem, as was expected. We did make it up the garage steps, but again the left toe was required. We both decided that trips out of the house would have to be limited! It’s hard to imagine how difficult life is when you have only one leg to stand on.