It's just the crumb of a muffin, but Martha Galvis must pick it up. Lips clenched, eyes narrowed, she pushes it back and forth across a slick table, then in circles.
"I struggle and struggle until," Galvis pauses, concentrating all her attention on the thumb and middle finger of her left hand. She can't get them to close around the crumb.
"I try as much as I can, and if I do it, I'm so happy ā so happy," she says, giggling.
Galvis has just finished a session of physical therapy at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital, where she goes twice a week. She's learning to use a hand that doctors are still reconstructing. It's been two years since she almost lost it to the explosions at the Boston Marathon.
On April 15, 2013, Martha and her husband, Alvaro Galvis, stopped to watch the marathon from three different spots along the course; they enjoyed the race and boisterous crowd. Their last stop was near the finish line.
Watching the race was a ritual that began in the mid-1970s when the Galvises, who are both from Colombia, met in Boston. Their three children grew up celebrating the marathon as a family holiday, and Martha and Alvaro Galvis had planned to continue the annual event after retirement.
[For more of this story, written by Martha Bebinger, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/healt...feels-out-of-control]
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