New Foot and Leg Wear

It has been two weeks since I had surgery to fix my broken ankle and today it was time to have a cast put on instead of the plaster splint. (Actually I am not sure what it was made up of - maybe fiberglass like the cast?)

I was ready to move onto this next stage of healing but was a little apprehensive about the procedure.  First the nurse took off the splint and removed all the staples.  The Dr. used staples instead of stitches and I do believe he must have gone crazy with the stapler.

My incision is about 6" long and it must have had staples every 1/16".  Some were ok when she removed them but most were just pretty uncomfortable!  When that was done I did get my leg cleaned up a bit, which by the way was pretty shrunk up.  I have always had large calves that I inherited from my father, plus a little added weight over the years and they are definitely beefy!  I wouldn't mind keeping the slimmed down version but then I would really look odd wouldn't I?  I have been assured that after I get to walking after the cast and compression boot (the next step after the cast) are off I will get my muscle back.

I got x-rays then waiting, waiting, waiting for the Dr.  I just wanted it to all be over so was just a tad bit nervous and got more so the more I waited.  Tried to distract myself by chatting with John who wasn't nervous in the least - he of course was not having to look forward to the Dr. manipulating his newly fixed ankle!

Well, I can say I sure don't want to have to have another cast put on.  It was hard to preserve my dignity and not jerk my leg away from the Dr. or cry like a baby but I managed it barely.  Tonight I am laying on the couch again with my leg up and ankle iced down.  Feeling not too bad but the area where the incision was made is a little sore.  I have taken pain pills at regular intervals today so think that has helped some.  Hopefully I won't have to take them too long as I had been with out any medication for pain for several days, having cut the high powered stuff down to just bedtime a week ago then stopped taking everything.

The cast stays on for 4 weeks but after just another 2 weeks I am to start putting weight on it wearing a special cast shoe.  Another fashion accessory in my future!  The Dr. says to start by putting 25 pounds weight on at first....my question was how do you know what 25 pounds is?  He said to have a bathroom scale available and to press down with my foot until it reads 25 pounds so I will know what that feels like.  Not sure how one manages to walk/hop with only 25 pounds pressure on one foot but guess I will find out.

OK, enough of this technical medical stuff - ha, ha.  Oh, did you notice the color of my cast?  I got to choose a color for the outside layers from many different colors.  I opted for the light blue and right now it looks pretty good but I wonder what it will look like after 4 weeks?

I have not done much hand quilting, just a little here and there.  My fingers don't have the callouses needed for lots of hand quilting so can be very tender and for some reason I just can't stick with it very long to get them built up.  I used to love hand quilting but anymore I like doing the machine quilting more so don't know if that is my problem or the fact that I am quilting through some of the seams on this project and that is hard to do. 

Chatted on way to long but John is gone this evening, TV is boring so this blog got my undivided attention tonight.

Lynn