centipedes with crutches

Yesterday was my appointment at the orthopedic clinic. The receptionist remembered me, and commented on how quickly the five weeks had gone past. She's very cheerful, so it wasn't hard being cheerful back.

First I was sent over to Imaging with a yellow chit for an x-ray. There was only one person in that waiting room when I arrived, and his number (#12) was called before I'd manoeuvred myself into a chair. I read a couple of previews on my e-reader before I was called (#13). The x-rays were done pretty quickly - one from the front, one from the side - and as I left I saw that the waiting room had filled up with half-a-dozen patients and their family members.

Had to wait longer to be seen by the surgeon, what with the x-rays having to be developed and sent over, and the other patients. One nasty moment when my Kobo reader for some reason told me I needed to recharge it right away, even though I'd fully charged it that morning because I knew I'd be waiting. Cursed myself for not bringing an actual book, but then the Kobo went to Update and realised it was fully charged after all.
Read several chapters in sheer relief. 
I apologise for not having taken a photo of my new x-rays, but I didn't want to take up time, and there wasn't much to see. The little chipped bit may not have reattached, it was hard to tell, but the area beneath it, at risk for more cracking, was mending well.
He said again that he didn't think the ligaments were damaged because it's usually either ligament or bone, not both. He examined the knee but didn't do that thing of seeing whether the shin moved forward of the knee (which I'm kind of glad not to have experienced, actually) so I don't have absolute assurance about the ligaments. We did discuss ACL damage, and when surgery might be necessary and when not. He assured me that if my knee doubled under me the way it did right after the injury I could come back.
Otherwise I could put away the immobilizer and the crutches, start physiotherapy to the point of pain but not agony (good to have those distinctions) and work up from a stationary bike to a road bike. And he'd see me again in six weeks (unless my knee folded before then).
Oh, and the numbness and pins-and-needles were (unless they didn't get better) not nerve damage but nerves reacting to the swelling and to the swelling going down.

So I have the go-ahead to put weight on both legs and to walk without crutches. What I don't have is the nerve. That memory of my knee bending sideways when I tried to stand (with Mark supporting me, even) is very present, and keeps me clinging to the crutches.
I'm in a very odd state of simultaneous Woohoo! to have the immobilizer off and be able to stand on both feet, and Yikes! to be unsupported and possibly about to topple over.
Mark is being wonderfully patient with me and reminding me that I don't have to be all recovered right away, that it really is one step at a time, and that it's okay for me to be nervous (but I should stop apologising for it).

 A centipede was happy quite
Until a frog, in fun,
Asked 'Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in a ditch
Considering how to run.

Like that centipede, I find myself uncertain how to proceed with this walking business, but also in a state of random cold terror about the part of walking that involves putting my whole weight onto my injured leg.
What I've done so far is to change my crutch gait (which I was getting pretty good at) to a slower but more like walking gait. I found it on youtube, a source for which I am duly grateful, and which also provided an extensive set of post-ACL leg exercises that can be done lying down.
And today I walked around the garden (with crutches) and picked rhubarb for a possible pie. Not raspberry and rhubarb pie because there were only two raspberries and I ate them. Maybe I'll just have stewed rhubarb.