And just like that… four weeks passed, and the right thumb, swathed up to the wrist in purple, was freed to resume its life as a functional digit. Though it’s not completely functional yet, it’s giving it the old college try (which is nice since it was injured on a college campus). The thumb, along with my recovering sprained ankle, will receive physical therapy from a nice young man named Gerry in the weeks to come. But for the moment, it’s happy to breathe fresh air again, not have to be encased in a large rubber glove in the shower (hand/wrist condom!) and try to bend a bit.

Here the nice Cast Man has just applied the little circular saw to start the cast-off process:

Free at last!

What’s also amusing is to look back four years to photos from the last time I had a purple cast on the other wrist/arm. It was 2015 when I fell off my front porch and landed with hand down in such a way that it broke my left wrist.

The photos remind me how much more challenging that experience was—six weeks with most of the left arm in a cast after I broke my wrist. Showering and doing basic tasks were much more difficult than this experience… something else to be grateful for.

We were invited to the classy Authors on the Move dinner in 2015, so we dressed up as best we could (we are not generally dressy folk) and sat at the table of MC Beth Ruyak. (We were definitely the least classy folks at that table.) Above, we pose with the late Wally cat at my house. (He was a very sweet kitty.)

And because this is what we (now a two iPhone family) do, a picture of me taking a picture of the pictures of my thumb:

My goal now is to get through the rest of my lifetime without breaking/spraining/ wrenching/yanking any body parts that require binding in any way. Though the two casts allowed my broken bits to heal, here’s to remaining well balanced… and returning to regular walking and yoga, which has long helped me stay upright in the world.