Cast comes off!!

The last photo of my leg in a cast.

Drumroll please (badabadabadabada) ...


The cast is off!

Cast is sawed off.

I'm a mummy!

After sawing the cast in half and pulling it off, the big reveal was much more disgusting than I had expected. I knew there'd be leg hair, but since when did hair grow on top of my foot (answer: NEVER. I swear). I knew the muscle would have shrunk, but I had no idea it would be plainly visible. I knew the cast would be a giant bag of dead skin, but I didn't know how caked the layers of nastiness would be.

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you suddenly stopped shedding dead skin cells, I can tell you. The skin builds and builds and builds until there's a caked layer of thick, slimy, skin in a damp chalk consistency on your leg. There was a clear line where I obviously couldn't reach into the cast where the thick dead skin began. This area felt like smooth plastic.

So the clear line in the middle shows you how long my fingers are. The circles on the side of my ankle are the marks from the fracture blisters.

Dry, dead, cracking caked-on skin.

Now let's talk about leg hair. I knew it would be long. I didn't know that I would be able to feel the wind in my leg hair when crutching without a cast on. It was horrible. Also, my skin is sad. It makes sense that the pores would be all stopped up, but my entire lower leg is a combination of tiny red dots (I refuse to call them zits) and a tiny, itchy heat rash.

This photo makes me want to upchuck.

The scars looked nasty but better than I expected. They had big scabs on them and the skin on my entire leg was very, very dry. 

Lastly, my muscle mass is completely gone, leaving my left leg looking bowed awkwardly. I still am unable to flex my calf muscle because that entails moving your toes or some other something that isn't working. 

Note the difference in shape of both legs. Neither is touching the table in this photo and I'm not flexing my right calf. My left leg looks very bowed. No wonder I lost weight. It all came from my calf!

I'll post about my current ankle contraption and I'll show you some photos of the post-shower difference (it's pretty incredible) next time.