Cast away...

Today, was a full day.  Woke up at quarter after five - with the alarm set for seven thirty.  I had a nine o'clock appointment for my routine bloodwork, so we had some time to kill at home - but that's what cheerios are for.

Leaving the house requires a little gymnastics to get from the scooter inside to the scooter outside and down three steps.  Weight bearing is easy to take for granted.  We stopped for a cheese & egg breakfast sandwich at Timmies - because it was hours since first breakfast - and made it to the appointment ten minutes early.  It only took a couple of needle prods to get the required sample and it we were off to Grand River Hospital in Kitchener.

I sat in the back of the car with my funky leg stretched out on the seat. A bit awkward, but I had experienced a fair bit of discomfort on the drive home from Kitchener three weeks ago, so I wanted to avoid it this time.

The drive was relatively uneventful - besides truckers crowding our lane.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare, which suits us introverts just fine.

The technician had to fight me a bit because the cast cutting tool vibrated and tickled like... um... like something very ticklish indeed.  (creative writing classes paid off)

It was interesting seeing all the layers peeled off my foot.  The blue fiberglass carcass, followed by cotton, more cotton, gauze, more gauze, and then the bare incisions held closed by a dozen staples each.  The technician was not impressed by Dr Stevens' cast handiwork but assured me that he was good at "cutting".

Dr Snider was in charge of the fracture clinic today so he inspected the foot and the healing progress.  He declared everything to be on track and called for a three week follow up for the next cast to be removed. Sept 10.

I was offered my choice of colour and quickly narrowed it down to orange and lime green.  Orange won out because I married a half Dutchie or whatever the reason.

The technician, was very adept at assembling the new cast.  First gauze hosiery.  Yeah, hosiery.  Then lots of layers of cotton.  Then the hot and wet fiberglass wrap, which took under five minutes to cool, harden and dry.  Very neat.  Apparently St Mary's Hospital doesn't have fiberglass cast technology, so if I have my next surgery there I'll be downgraded to plaster.  We'll see how that plays out.

I learned that the looseness of the first cast was due to muscle loss - after only three weeks.  Doh!  Looks like I have more gym visits in my future.

I decided to try sitting in the front with a pillow on the floor on the way home and it worked out well.  We stopped at Costco for a Montreal Smoked Meat sammage - yummy.  Then we caused a run in between two cars fighting for the handicap parking spot we were vacating.  The car that just arrived snuck into the spot before we could do anything about it.  Argh.  Evil sucks.

Anyway, we got home and spent the evening documenting our day and laughing at the comments on Facebook   Thank you, Mr Betterley.