Ruby, no slipper

I've told a friend that I'll write something about my injury for his company's blog. The small nonprofit sends doctors to very poor nations to provide those who need them with prosthetic limbs; I suppose many of the injuries are due to American landmines. My experience is only in some distant way comparable to that of a person born with a clubfoot or shorn of an arm, but I will try to convey something of what it's like to move between ability and disability, how confusing it can be, how it directs your vision into the mirror even as you suddenly see every broken person as a sister or brother.

I've been walking for a few weeks without my crutch, but I have a limp, my calf muscle is weak, and if I stand still for a minute my foot becomes bloated and ruby. My surgeon told me he believed I'd always limp, so of course I will do all I can to prove him wrong.