Thankfulness

I am thankful for baby wipes, the 'cast condom' and sleep.

Baby wipes:

These things are the only thing keeping my poor toes clean.  I can't get them wet because they are really too close to the bottom of my cast, so I baby wipe them every day or so.  I even painted my toenails for awhile but ended up removing that because it looked so odd when my foot was purple from blood flow.

The 'cast condom' - or a Curad cast protector

This thing is great.  It's a thin rubbery membrane that has a hole at the top that just barely fits over my cast.  You stretch it a bit to make it fit and then it sits tightly against my leg just above the cast.  It's reusable as long as I'm careful.  I've gotten about two weeks of showers out of each one (two in a package).  SOOO much easier than plastic bags and tape!  There are also covers that have a plastic ring at the top, but those wouldn't work for me as I need to be able to kneel in the shower and that ring would make it impossible.  After my shower, I lightly dry off the cover and then hang it from a towel bar until next time.  Thank you, Curad!!

Sleep.

This kind of needs no explanation but I'm going to explain it anyway.  I typically do well on about 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  What I am finding that since the injury/surgery, I needed at least 9 hours and sometimes 10.  I mean, I needed it.  If I only got 8, I was dragging ass all day.  I expect this is from my body's attempt at healing.  But this isn't why sleep is on my list.  Sleep is here because sleep is what I do when I just can't take it anymore.  Sleep gives me sanity.  When I'm asleep, I'm a normal person.  I'm not hobbling, I'm not banging into doors with my crutches, I'm not hopping, I'm in no danger of falling over, I'm not sitting all contorted with my foot in the air, I'm not driving around looking for drive-thrus because I can't carry anything in my hands while on crutches, and most importantly, I'm not thinking about 'how much longer I have to have this stupid cast on my leg/foot'.  I'm just a normal person asleep.  And of course, each night that I go to sleep, I wake up one day closer to my next appointment and possibly a walking cast.  Sleep rocks.

Speaking of drive-thrus...the other day I was laughing at myself when I realized that I needed a drive through  grocery store.  Up until this injury, I spent my life avoiding drive throughs, sitting and parking too close to buildings.  I would intentionally go into restaurants or dry cleaners, stand whenever I could and park at spaces far away from entrances just to give myself more activity.  Now I'm thankful for drive-thurs, chairs and my disabled parking permit.  How depressing.  Thankfully, it's temporary!

Mobility's a B1tch

Tomorrow it will be 5 week since I injured my foot.  That's 5 weeks with zero weight-bearing on it.  I've got a minimum of another 3 weeks and then I'll have another doctor's appointment.  I don't really know what will happen from there but I'm hopeful (without being too hopeful) that I'll get a walking boot of some sort.  We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm beginning to master the ability to be mobile.  When I leave the house, I drive my beat up little 20 year old Honda Civic with my left foot while my right foot remains elevated on the passenger seat.  My crutches fit nicely across the back seat.  When I park, the crutches come out and I can get around at a good clip.  I've developed a pretty decent level coordination with them, and honestly, I don't mind them most of the time.  The greatest problem is that it is virtually impossible to carry anything while 'crutching'.  I've got it down to where I can carry two small things, one in each hand, and still crutch well enough.  This is how I managed to buy a lipstick and a pack of baby wipes at Walgreen's the other day.  (Look for a future post on bathing to learn about the baby wipes!)

Knee Scooter by Drive

When I am at home, I drop the crutches into the corner and jump on the above knee scooter.  I do this because on the knee scooter, I can have my hands more free.  I'm still somewhat limited because it still needs to be steered, but it's better than crutches.  We live in a 1 level ranch that is fairly spacious inside, so I can manouver fairly well.  It is useless in four places - the kitchen where I don't have a good turning radius, going to the basement, my closet and outside.

Hands-free crutch by IWalkFree (rented from Goodbye Crutches)

When in the kitchen, needing to go to the basement, in my closet for any length of time, or outside, I switch to my hands-free crutch.  I actually call it my 'peg leg'.  I had to make some alterations to the platform on which my shin rests to accommodate my cast in comfort, but it works well.  I can walk with it without using my hands (except down stairs...I still need my hands for that) and it works on uneven terrain like the back yard.  It's physically a challenge to operate it...particularly outside, but it makes some things SO much easier.  The only problem is that my leg is wedged in there really tightly, so after a few hours, it aches and I need to straighten it and stretch out.  It really is a HUGE help though and frankly, could be a total game changer for some people.  I haven't felt the need to use it outside the house yet because I'm mostly OK with using my crutches, but I can see how it could be very handy.

While all this is working out OK and generally I'm fine with it, I do miss walking.  I find that sometimes I really need to talk myself off the ledge and think patient thoughts because I've still got a minimum of 3 weeks left and quite possibly more.  This is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one!