Singapore slings and more...PODay 98

I never knew there were so many different types of slings until I needed one. My first sling, when I limped home with a "broken shoulder," was fashioned from a torn up sheet by my 10 year old granddaughter. Wikihow has some pretty good instructions and she is, after all, a Girl Scout.

Since this all was happening on a weekend and I was determined not to go to the emergency room, I showed up at my local CVS drugstore the next morning hoping to find something more functional and a little less primitive. They had one basic sling made of a light canvas material with an adjustable strap that wrapped around your neck. I bought it and the pharmacy assistanti helped me gingerly maneuver my arm into it, bless her heart.

That sling got me through the weekend and into the orthopod's office Monday. By then I had learned it wasn't enough to support the arm, I needed to anchor it to my body. Otherwise every time I moved or bent over my arm swung out away from my body and that was a bad thing. When I asked if there was a solution the nurse brought a "sling with swath." This was a major improvement. The sling is made of a poly-fleece type material so it was much softer on my skin. The strap did not wrap around the neck, rather two straps crossed behind the back, wrapped around the waist and velcroed to the arm sleeve. That was great as with this style the weight was on my shoulders, not around my neck. Furthermore, the "swath" was just what I needed. It is a long strip of more soft fleece material, long enough to wrap all the way around my body cuddling the sling-supported arm against my waist. It, too, anchors with Velcro. The generic looking box simply says "Sling with Swath."

That sling got me through 6 weeks post broken arm and came back into action for six weeks post rTSA recently.

Ideally I would have had an "AirCast Arm Immobilizer" or similar arm Immobilizer sling post rTSA. My hospital didn't supply one, my doctor wasn't a big fan and  and I was too discombobulated to order one. They provided two slings, one very little better than my original drug store sling and the other a mysterious wrap device that we never could figure out. It did have one nice feature though, a pocket for an ice pack. Because it was familiar and available, I reverted to my old "sling with swath."

Basic black got pretty boring and I wished I had thought to make some "fashion" slings prior to surgery. Finally I looked on the web and discovered that there must be a lot of women who feel the same way. Amazon and Broken Beauties are two sites to google if you are still a fashionista in spite of a bad shoulder.

By the time I found these resources, my sentence in the sling was coming to an end and I didn't order one.  So I can't give a personal recommendation. There are several on-line sources for slings and they have a much wider variety than my local stores.

Another type of sling pops up on the web when doing a search...the iconic Singapore Sling! But it is too complicated for me. I'll just have a glass of wine, please.

Archive timeline: 2014: May and June - preparing for surgery, July - surgery and post op problems, August - recovery and physical therapy, September..

Ingredients

Original recipe makes 1 cocktailChange Servings

• 1 cup ice
• 1 1/2 fluid ounces gin
• 1/2 fluid ounce cherry-flavored brandy
• 1/4 fluid ounce triple sec
• 1/4 fluid ounce Benedictine® liqueur
• 4 fluid ounces pineapple juice

• 1/2 fluid ounce lime juice
• 1/2 fluid ounce grenadine syrup
• 1 cup ice
• 1 slice fresh pineapple
• 1 maraschino cherry

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• PREP
  5 mins
• COOK
  5 mins
• READY IN
  10 mins

Directions

1. Fill a Collins glass with 1 cup ice and set aside in the freezer.
2. Combine gin, cherry-flavored brandy, triple sec, Benedictine, pineapple juice, lime juice, and grenadine in a cocktail shaker. Add 1 cup ice, cover and shake until chilled. Strain into the prepared Collins glass.
3. Garnish with slice of pineapple and a cherry