Thrombophlebitis

In Mom’s account of her fall in Belmopan during her cousins’ visit in 1980, she wrote:

Tore two holes in my leg…which would heal…and one in my new surgical stockings…which wouldn’t.

Mom was hospitalized for thrombophlebitis in 1975 (while visiting those same cousins in Saginaw). Thereafter, she had to wear custom-fit elastic compression stockings, which assisted blood circulation by applying graduated pressure on her veins, decreasing from toe to thigh.

When it was time to buy more stockings, Mom needed to make an appointment to visit an authorized vendor in the U.S., where her legs were remeasured to insure that the new stockings fit and functioned properly. Because of the difficulty and expense of replacing a pair of stockings, Mom viewed any serious damage to them as a minor catastrophe.

 

In the same chapter, Mom commented on sitting through a long church service:

I can manage the short communion service (which I go to on Tuesday mornings), but an hour and a half of cramped sitting and kneeling was too much for my leg.

Due to her thrombophlebitis, Mom needed to keep her leg elevated while sitting. Attending any kind of event at which she had to sit in a standard chair for long periods of time was very hard on her, often causing her leg to swell.