I’ve been wearing my cast for a week now. The best part of that is that I only have to wear it for two more weeks. But who’s counting? Well, if you have to know – I am. I must say there are things I’d forgotten about wearing a cast,  as well as some differences from the first one. The fingers on my left hand are much stronger and more useful than my right hand was after surgery. I can manage many things using just the fingers and pressure against my palm on my cast hand. Actions requiring a lot of strength, like lifting heavy items, are not possible without great discomfort. I can type fairly well, but my thumb keeps hitting the space bar and my fingers have to work hard to get into position to use the keyboard. The strain on my hand is very tiring, especially since I tend to make a lot of mistakes and then spend time correcting. The thing I find frustrating is that I can’t pick up a pen and write. I have missed sending several birthday cards because I don’t want to send them out with just my name on them. I can’t even address the envelopes myself!

Here are a couple of quirky things I’ve experienced. I tried working on a tea cozy the other day, but it was so tedious trying to pin the pattern and hold it in place with my left hand that I had ro quit. I hit myself in the face when I forgot the cast and reached to scratch my nose too quickly. When I get ready for bed sometimes I reach to take off my cast like it was a piece of clothing – wishful thinking. The end of the pin in my hand is quite irritating. The cast puts pressure on the pin so I need to fiddle and adjust the placement of my arm to get comfortable, and this is most noticeable when I’m trying to get to sleep. Taking a shower, especially when I need to wash my hair, is very time-consuming and frustrating. Everything just takes longer. I sort of slacked off with my regular Tylenol routine, but I’m back at it. Perhaps I’m not quite ready to do without some mild pain numbing drugs.

Then something  happened to add to the fun around here. My husband, Bob, called from his ski trip to say that he’d broken his leg. He was in Golden, B.C. and came by ambulance to Calgary. He’s been at the hospital for a couple of days, and finally this morning had surgery to fix his broken tibula and fibula. Bet you wish you were at our house over the next few weeks! Bob was not in a great deal of pain while he was waiting – downright great spirit actually. Here’s what the leg looked like last night:

The only experience I’ve had around a broken leg was when my son, Brad, broke his leg. He was 2, and still in diapers. I’m thinking this will be a bit different. I hope so.