"Walking cast"

edit 1/21/11:  i get a ton of google searches looking for information about walking casts. here is my short list of answers:

• my walking cast was all the way to my knee. 
• i wore the walking cast all day  and all night. i did not want to accidentally kick my foot or hit it on something. 
• walking up stairs was hard, but i did it fine. it just took some muscle toning to be able to do well.
• yes, i used crutches with the walking cast for about a week. it took that long to be able to put any weight on my foot. 
• i had muscle soreness because it forced my foot/leg to be constantly flexed. my calves felt like they were on fire, but so did my shins, hamstrings and quads. i discovered butt muscles i did not know i had.
• i found that the tighter the cast, the better. the worst feeling was having the cast be loose, because then it acted as a weight, pulling on my injured foot like a dumbell.
• i was only able to drive with my walking cast because it was on the left foot. i could not drive a manual transmission, but did fine with my right foot and an automatic transmission.
• wearing a shoe on the non-injured foot with a similar heel height (about two inches) helped me walk properly.
• i kept the walking cast (i didn't have smelling issues) just in case. it was an expensive investment with no insurance, and my dad was able to use it a few years later.
• here is a bad quality picture of the walking cast i used:

Well, a few months ago (ok, so in July :) I broke my foot at Girls camp. I stepped off a bridge, expecting to step onto a rock, but instead stepped into nothing for about 6 inches. I twisted my ankle, scraped up my leg badly, and apparently also got a compression fracture in my heel. Being the incredibly proud person I am (and because I had been getting after the girls all week to not wear slippers or shorts around camp, and I had been doing both) I got up and walked it off. Not a good idea in the long run.

Fast forward to Monday. I woke up with a really weird cramp in my foot that, throughout the day spread all over the bottom/back of my foot. Eventually, it spread into my leg, where I would get shooting pains from the tips of my toes to my hip. It was pretty much the worst pain I can imagine (and if childbirth is anything like it, I'm getting the epidural the minute I walk into the hospital)

I went into the emergency room at about midnight monday night, and sat there until 5:00 am Tuesday, for them to tell me basically there was nothing they could do, I needed to see a specialist. So, I went to work with crutches at 7:00 am that morning (thank goodness my mom works at my same work or I would have never gotten through the morning) until they could find someone to come in for me.

Well, I went in on Wed to see a podiatrist, and he told me basically that I had a compression fracture, probably from July when I fell at girls camp, and because I've been walking on my toes for the past couple months (because my foot was broken), I now had a spasm-ing muscle in my leg, which explained the pains shooting up my entire leg. He gave me a "walking cast" to wear 24/7 for the next three weeks, and a really cool shot that numbned my spastic muscle. Then he sent me on my merry way, explaining that I could go to work, walk around, do basically everything, so long as I had my magical walking cast on.

Little did he mention that because I have this wonderful walking cast (which goes from a full two inches past my toes up to my knee and weighs about three pounds itself) my hamstrings would basically be constantly flexed, and until I learn to deal with the new muscle soreness, I will probably still be hobbling around on crutches. He also failed to mention that it would be virtually impossible to find a comfortable position for my leg to rest where all my muscles are not flexing simply to hold it there. He did not mention that my foot would either feel like it's just sliding around inside a really big rain boot or being crushed in some cruel torture attempt--there is no happy-median. Either my muscles are too sore and weak (I'm using leg muscles I never knew I had) to lift my leg up onto the bed, or they are cramping too badly for me to stretch out my leg. I just can't get it right. So, today I am going to work in my new and lovely "walking cast" but I'm taking the crutches, and we'll see just how much walking I really get in. :)

On a happier note, here's (or I guess Up there ^) my new favorite picture of Jenna Lee. I have an admission to make about the poor girl. When she was first born, I thought she was pretty boring. (which is one of the good/bad things I got out of being a nanny. I am definitely NOT baby hungry anymore) But, now she's starting to smile more, be awake more, and just be all-around cuter. Anywho, here's my new favorite pic of her!