*AND* they come in decorator colors

[o_bunny]

I woke up yesterday morning with my broken foot hurting quite a lot, which it had not been doing.  Considering that I suffer from classic migraine, I believe that "quite a lot" really is quite a lot.  Inspection showed that the cast had broken above the ankle, about 3/4 of the way around, in line with the plaster bandage used to make the thing in the first place. If I relaxed my ankle, the crack opened and my foot hurt; if I tensed muscles so that the crack closed, my foot didn't hurt but my calf muscles ached and cramped.

I made the appropriate phone call, and got told to come in to the emergency room for a look-see. So my sweetie wrapped my cast in an elastic bandage (looked rather surreal), packed some supplies (food, check; drinks, check; paperback books, check) and we head off to the QCH.  Usual triage and wait ensues.

When I finally got to the cast room, the technician (I believe that's the right term) sawed off the old cast, washed my foot and leg, and we had a discussion on the scentedness of the soap being used ("It's unscented." "No it's not, I can smell it from over here," says my sweetie. "We're only supposed to use unscented stuff here." "Look, here in the ingredients list: Fragrance." "Dang. I'll take that up with the powers that be." "Thanks.  And while you're at it, would you mention the Purell that's everywhere and makes us ill?").  After a few careful rinsings with clear water, I had a new fiberglass cast installed.

If you ever need a cast, go for fiberglass.  It hardens in ten minutes, instead of the 48 hours that plaster takes; is much lighter than plaster, and (at least in theory) won't crack like plaster.  It also is available in a variety of colours; I picked blue, of a choice of blue, white, and glow-in-the-dark (I imagine a particular LJer is plotting a fracture just to get a glow-in-the-dark cast). That was the selection at the QCH, the manufacturer (3M) makes the stuff in 113 patient-pleasing colours.  (Sorry, that should have been 13, not 113, colours)

So far, so good.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Well, the glow-in-the-dark would be cute, but very annoying when you're trying to sleep (if, like me, you need full darkness) :-) :-)

113 colours -- now that's impressive! I wonder how many places actually offer the full range?

Best of luck that this new cast lasts until it can be cut off because it's finished its work.

Re fragranced soaps: you would think the staff could have smelled it! I am not impressed.

[o-bunny.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that should really have read *13* colours. Edited and fixed...

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

Fibreglass is also much more water-resistant. (But keep it dry anyway, the inner stuff can get nasty if it gets wet.)

But you can't get autographs on the fibreglass ones.