We are still at the Lunenburg Board of Trade Campground and will be until the 22nd.  It’s the best place to be while I can’t walk and also have to keep the leg elevated.  Everything is close enough for Steve to walk to for errand running and to get out and do some sightseeing.  The tourist information office is a few feet away and has been so helpful in giving Steve directions and also gave him a nice discount for staying here a week.

The fiberglass cast was intolerable.  It rubbed both ankles and across the top of my foot, itched, was hot and heavy, and there was absolutely no position I could put the cast in to get out of misery.  After much pleading night before last, Steve started working on getting the cast removed. I did some internet research and found out for this kind of break (spiral fracture of the distal fibular) that I could wear a cast boot.  You see them in the US all the time now, they have good cushioning and many Velcro straps for loosening and tightening as need be.  Yesterday Steve walked to a pharmacy to find out we could get one in Bridgewater about 12 miles away. We went there and to a hardware store where Steve bought some utility snippers to continue working on the cast.  All together it took about 6 hours of slow, tedious, and very cautious work for the most patient man in the world to get the cast off.  What a relief!! And the orthopedic boot is 100% comfortable even though I still can’t step down.  It’s easy to sleep with too because it’s not so heavy.  Cost $90.  Sales tax here is 13% and someone told us it was going to 15%.

I presume the Canadians with their socialized health care system have to trim costs to the bone to be able to treat everyone and this is why they still use plaster and fiberglass for casts.  The hospital was old and not gleaming modern like many of ours. The parking lot was pay parking and Steve had to push me up a steep hill in a wheel chair to get in the door with no one rushing out to help.  The same leaving.  However, everyone has health care.  The very nice doctor brought up the subject of their health care even though I never said a word about it or asked questions.  I think this was because the Canadian system gets bashed by the US so much and he wanted us to know that it might not be fancy but everyone gets treated.   And yes, he said Canadians have to wait a year for something like hip replacement.  But no one is going to the poor farm.  He also said he doesn’t get paid nearly as well as an American doctor but he gets to practice medicine all day and not deal with paperwork and insurance companies.  It’s really too bad Americans have been indoctrinated to be so afraid of the word socialism – just like we were brought up to be scared to death the commies were going to come and get us.  The very people who are bashing health care for all HAVE GOOD INSURANCE.  Wonder what they would be saying if the tables were turned and they had none and got ill?  Or paid a small fortune each year for premiums and huge deductibles and no prescription coverage?  Or couldn’t buy insurance because of pre-existing conditions?  It’s just total luck of the draw on where you happen to work, past or present, as to coverage.