Day 12…..more swimming & waterproof cast cover info
Today was bright & sunny & warm & I swam again in the Valognes outdoor pool; this time for a good 45 minute session. I keep telling myself, ”You are not ill, you are merely incapacitated” & I ignore the interested stares of the French (they are a nation of starers in any case) as I gingerly negotiated my way thru’ the changing rooms & onto the pool side in my bikini & enormous, blue latex cast cover. For me, being able to swim is an absolute treat, after all the sitting around & I stayed in as long as I could, swimming as far as I could, in the knowledge that the moment I got out of the pool, I’d be back to being a cripple, moving labouriously once again, on my crutches. ‘Cripple’ is prob politically incorrect, but since I’m talking about myself, I reserve the right to use this word.
As I swam up & down; slightly more slowly than usual, using mostly just one leg, but moving sleekly though the water & feeling the delicious feeling of (almost) all my muscles & limbs working as they should do & inhaling great lungfuls of beautiful, fresh air, I watched a severely handicapped guy with a terribly deformed body, swimming as well as he was able, in an adjacent lane. His wheel chair was parked alongside my crutches on the side of the pool. His condition is permanent & I felt humbled to be making such a great big fuss over my injury; temporary & tiny in comparison with what he has to deal with, for his entire life.
I’ve added a link (I hope) to the eBay page where I bought my cast cover. It says it’s good for 4 weeks of use: at £21 delivered to France, in just TWO days I think this is a complete bargain. Slightly cheaper in the UK. Hopefully, in another 4 weeks my 2nd cast will be coming off, but if not, I’ll just order a replacement when this one starts to get weak. You just pull it on like a big sock, squeeze the air out as you enter the water & bingo; off you go. Thanks to Norm for his suggestion to put some absorbent cloth like micro-fibre inside the sock to catch any water which does manage to get in, but so far, in 2 uses, it’s been dry as a bone when I’ve taken the cover off again, after showering in the changing rooms.
I don’t know whether being in a cast is an advantage for me: it means I cannot accidentally move my AT whilst swimming: I’m looking for positives in this situation! I guess if you are in a boot, you need to check with your doc. if swimming is a good idea ?
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EG, there’s really no difference between the two for the first weeks of most protocols — including UWO’s, which I’m “pushing” — since there’s usually no PT or ankle exercise during that period anyway. You’re still <2 weeks, and having more “fun” and getting more whole-body exercise than 99-odd% of us, so the cast obviously isn’t holding you back!
OTOH, my fave protocol DOES call for PT and (very gentle) ankle exercises starting in a day or two (at 2 weeks), and then the cast will stop that from happening. Several people here agitated for a boot soon after 2 weeks, to facilitate those “extras” — and a few even bought their own and brought it in with them to their “cast-replacement” session. (Some walked out in their boot, and some in a new cast anyway!)