Cast Off!

It probably wouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone that I was too impatient to wait for the scheduled appointment to take my cast off. In two occasions in the 72 hours before it came off I had tried to convince friends to saw it off with a bread knife. Monday came around and I couldn’t even wait one more day for the Tuesday morning appointment, so I rescheduled and drove myself to Kaiser that afternoon. The cast came off without much of a hitch. The leg was not as white, hairy, thin or scaly as I had expected. But I guess it was a little of each.

The first thing I noticed was an incredibly sharp pain when I tried to extend my foot. I was afraid that there was another injury or perhaps ligament damage that hadn’t healed properly. But the Dr. Reitman (my orthopedic at Kaiser Permanente) wasn’t concerned and as of this morning I’ve got more freedom of movement in that region before the pain starts. So, his explanation that it would take some time for my ligaments to stretch out again seems right on.

But initially Dr. Reitman’s efforts to allay my fears were unsuccessful. On my first trip down the stairs in my place I caught my heel on a step and my foot was torqued to extension. The pain was unbelievable. I was only halfway down the stairs so I immediately went back up to grab a handful of Vicodin. I was concerned that I’d turn in my sleep and extend the leg and wake up screaming in pain as a result. But the Vicodin carried my through the night and I woke up with much more flexibility than I had the day before.

Back to the Dr.’s office, I was amazed how bad the bone looked in the x-ray. To me, it looked like it hadn’t healed at all. But the doc zoomed in on the image and changed the contrast and you could see a less dense almost spongy looking substance that bridged the gap and even surrounded the fracture like mounded up plaster. In fact, the bone is going to be much wider where the break occurred. Doc said that even after four more months we’d probably be able to see remnants of the fracture on an x-ray. But the bone should be at full strength in six weeks. Turns out that I cannot do full running until then.

Today I’m just happy as can be do walk around slowly. It’s a bit scary because it feels like my right leg could give out at any time. And if I stretch the foot too far I feel sharp pains. But its a joy to walk again. Its hard to believe how much joy the simple act of walking can provide. Its not something I’ll take for granted for a long time.