I’ve just returned from having the wound examined and the dressing changed. My surgeon says the wound looks very good, and he will remove the stitches a week from today. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the wires, which make walking, even with crutches, extremely hazardous will remain in place for five more weeks. Meaning I’ll have to hobble around on crutches, using extreme caution during those weeks.

I’m doing better than I’d expected to be doing at this point. But Mr. Geoff will have to do most of the heavy lifting on the Newsletter. I can’t sit at the big computer for more than 15 minutes at a stretch as there’s no way to elevate my injured foot. MacBook Air is great, but not for serious work.

This hospital complex is like a small city. As the distance from the entrance to the doctor’s office is at least as long as several football pitches end to end, Pavel must drop me off at the ambulance entrance, plant me in a wheel chair, and then go find a place to park. He has to walk back, and roll me to the doctor’s office, and then repeat the process in reverse.

What I’ve noticed while waiting in the ambulance entrance: It’s like sitting in the lobby of a busy hotel and watching the taxis pull up, pick up and unload passengers. Replace ‘taxis’ with ‘ambulances.’ There’s a steady stream of ambulances, almost bumper to bumper, pulling up, unloading and picking up patients. I kid you not. Now, that’s a busy hospital. Remember, everything the communists built had to be the biggest in the world. That included hospitals. Right next to where Pavel parks me is a huge door marked “Traumabox.” I assume that’s the emergency, emergency room. Despite its communist origins, the hospital now has the most modern equipment and really excellent care.

So, I’ll mostly be on sick leave for at least a few more weeks. Maybe walking and sitting will become easier as the days go by. I can already get around pretty well, if very slowly, on the crutches. How much work I can do depends on how long I can sit comfortably at the ‘big computer.’ My foot is telling me, “time to go.”