Thursday, April 5, 2012

An incremental improvement

Dear constant reader:  by now you've probably cottoned on to the notion that it doesn't take much to get me excited.  Of course you're right--especially when that small improvement gets me that tiny bit closer to normalcy in terms of my daily routine.  Earlier I posted about my struggles with keeping my cast dry during showers. At first I put my arm in a kitchen sized trash bag and had diaristwoman help tape it around my arm.  That was OK so long as she was around to help.  The next iteration was to wrap my arm with kitchen cling wrap and tape the ends shut with packing tape.  This was better because I could do it myself.  However there were days when I'd drop the roll of cling wrap mid way through the job.  This provoked language unsuitable for a civilized household.  What to do?  At about that time I was devoting most of my brain energy into the development of my now famous CAST SHIELD and just didn't have any good ideas to advance on the shower protector front.

Fortunately one of my readers, TNT, supplied the necessary direction:  her basic bit of wisdom was "lookit dummy, you're not the first apple-knocker who's busted an arm--show a little initiative and do a Google search on cast protector."  And so I did.  Lo and behold there's a goodly selection of purpose-made plastic, slip on cast protectors fighting for one's attention in the market place.  They ranged from ones with velcro closures to others with straps and still others with elastic closures--who knew?  Armed with this info I went to my local Rite-Aid pharmacy.  I asked the young kassörska to direct me to the cast protector department but drew only a blank stare.  She repeated my question to middle management who said "if we have 'em they'll be over in aisle eleven."  Unfortunately aisle eleven yielded nothing which remotely resembled what I was looking for.  Indeed there wasn't even an empty slot on the shelf where cast protectors might have once a upona been placed.  Now this was towards the back of the store close to the pharmacy.  The Pharmacist watched me pacing up and down the aisle and finally asked what I was looking for. After showing her my arm and explaining my mission she whispered one word in my ear: "Walgreens."

"Easy One-handed Application; No need for Tape or Straps".  Sounds like my kinda product.

The sleeves come two per package and live up to the promise of being strong enough to reuse.  I've used this one for the better part of a week and it's still snug and leak free.  The sleeve is sealed all the way around except for an incredibly small elasticized opening in the back (you can see where the passage of my cast has stretched it a bit--but it's still good and snug).  At first I didn't think I'd be able to feed my arm into such a small opening but the elastic stretched and stretched as the sleeve swallowed my arm cast and all.

Now I'm sure that all the broken bone experts in the audience are probably cluck-clucking that all this is terribly obvious and hardly worth posting but for broken bone newbs, such as myself, this info isn't all that apparent, and so I post it in the hope that the info makes some other skater's life just that little tad easier.  Thanks again to TNT for the tip!  Oh, one final point:  Walgreens has these for the foot/lower leg as well.  I do hope I never need to explore that aisle again!

4 comments:

  1. Yes, Walgreens rocks. I was so happy when they came to my town. When my mother had knee surgery I just picked up a couple of cast protectors and that was that. She could even put them on herself.

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  2. Our Walgreens just opened a few weeks ago. Not only did they have the cast protector thingies, but more importantly they also had Russell Stover chocolate covered Easter eggs in the incredibly hard to find Maple walnut flavor--bonus! I bought two and must confess that one is already long gone. The other one is out of sight 'til Sunday when it will be "resurrected".

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  3. Oh yes, I was supposed to send you "brand specifics" on what I used to keep my foot dry in the shower, but I see you went ahead and put 2 and 2 together on your own. Yay! Much better than bubble wrap and duct tape.

    In maple-related non sequitur news, I was in Maine a few weeks ago and had maple cotton candy right there at the sugar shack where they make maple syrup and many other maple-y things. I didn't feel guilty about eating cotton candy because, after all, it came from a tree so must be healthy.

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  4. A little sugar, from maple or other sources, never hurt anyone and I do enjoy a couple of those Maple cream eggs! The trick is the keep items with high sugar content to a dull roar. The problem is fructose--regardless of the source. Sucrose, aka cane or table sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose while high fructose corn syrup ranges between 42 and 55% fructose, so I'm not arguing that one source is better or worse than the other; basically they are equivalent in terms of fructose content. The main point to keep in mind is that fructose metabolism, unlike glucose metabolism, is carried out mainly in the liver, is independent of insulin and exhibits similarities to alcohol metabolism.

    I suspect that the increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease seen in this country is probably due to increased consumption of foods with enriched fructose content. But it's all about moderation. A little bit of sugar, like a glass of wine, enjoyed every now and then is one of life's pleasures!

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