ELARA
The fiberglass cast was the color of surgical gauze—that particular shade of off-white that hospitals seemed to have patented, somewhere between eggshell and surrender. It encased my left forearm from just below my elbow to the base of my fingers, leaving only my thumb and fingertips exposed. Dr. Okonkwo had called it a "short arm cast," as if the modifier made it somehow less intrusive.
The weight of it was strange. Not heavy, exactly—fiberglass was lighter than the old plaster casts, she'd explained while the orthopedic technician wrapped the wet bandaging around my arm—but present.A reminder with every movement that something was broken.
Distal radius fracture with minimal displacement. That's what the X-ray had shown. Clean break, she'd said. No surgery needed. Six to eight we
