Marti's Musings: Grand Canyon..the Saga Continues

Okay, so I haven't posted about my Grand Trip. In fact, I've been incredibly lazy about blogging. After breaking the ankle I spent one month in a cast. If you've had a cast you know what a pain in the butt it is. You get itches that you can't reach except with a popsicle stick or the use of a bamboo skewer made for the bbque. You are stuck in one position for a very long time. If you are an analytical type like me, you know that there is a growing amount of dead skin under there, too. It's sort of creepy.

Taking a shower is really difficult. You wrap a hefty trash bag on and secure it with some kind of tape that you can get on, but also get off. As soon as you step into the shower the slickness of the bag nearly drops you on your ass onto the shower floor, if you haven't already managed to punch a hole into the bag. That's when duct tape comes in handy. Anyways, you do shower, but you never really feel clean because, well, you still itch under that cast.

After 4 weeks, the cast came off and then it was on to the walking cast. Only problem is they actually wanted me to wear it at night. Can you imagine? I have chickens. And those chickens poop. And I need to go into the coop to let them out, and also to feed them and provide water. There was no way I was wearing that walking cast in my bed. I told my orthopedist he obviously didn't have chickens nor had ever walked in dog poop either. I mean, really? So I wore it all day long and took it off after work. Wow, real air, and a real shower. It took at least a weeks worth, maybe two weeks worth to eliminate all that stuff from under the cast. The first thing I did when I got the cast off was go get a pedicure. And a glass, actually three, of wine.

Well, now the walking cast is off, much to the delight of my coworkers. I couldn't sneak around my office at all. The walking cast had hinges that clicked into a specific position on both sides to keep the foot and ankle in the proper position. It was very noise and made a really annoying sound. Though my co workers said they knew I wasn't stealing anyones yogurt out of the work fridge because I'd be caught. They also noticed when the noise went away when I got it off a bit over a week ago.

Now I'm on to rehab. Having that cast on, and then the walking cast really wrecked havoc on my walking gait. It also threw my left leg out of whack, my back out of whack, and I have pain in my neck and shoulders. The achilles tendon is what I have to work on and flexibility to the tendons that attach to the ankle and tibia/fibula which are the two bone I broke. Who would have guessed you could get a clean break of two bones running a Class IV/V rapid while being in the raft? I've been walking every day about 6 blocks to a mile with the dog now. And today I did about two miles, but I'm pretty sore tonight.