I am now in my boot cast. It turns out that it is worst than the cast I had before. It is heavier and impossible to sleep in. The way I get to sleep every night is to fight to find a way to put my foot down, without causing my foot pain , and finally pass out from sheer exhaustion. I never remember falling asleep and I when I wake I pray I got enough sleep. The problem is the cast weighs between 5-10 lbs. and when I put it down it sinks into the cushion. It creates a pulling outward at the heel and this causes pain. So if it is painful to put down how does one rest? I feel like someone designed this to be a torture chamber! I finally found a way to stop the heal form sinking by placing a nonskid pad down and then on top of that putting a cushion and just placing the heel on the corner of the cushion. Why on the corner? Because there is very little material to sink into on the corner. I was sure to place something behind the cushion and nonskid pad to keep them from moving. What a process!
The heel is hard plastic on the bottom and then open on the top where your heel sits. The liner of the cast is inflatable fleece like material and it covers the foot and all the way up the leg to the knee. Everything is held on with adjustable straps.
Inflating the cast helps when you need extra support when moving around to keep the cast from slipping in the heel. Once my swelling went down I found I needed to use the extra padding pieces ,that came with the cast. to help fill in space around my heel.
This has been a long process and not only is it hard on me it is hard on my family. I am not able to do the chores I used to and so they have to pick up the slack. Also it is hard for them to see me in such discomfort. The thought that comforts me is that each day I am healing. Given time this too will pass.
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