Making the Cover

As long as I've had a prosthesis, I have expected it to look something like my unaffected leg. Because of the shape of my residual limb, it cannot be exact, and that's OK. It is what it is. But I've come to realize that there is a different expectation in current prosthetic fabrication. The emphasis, and rightly so, is on fit, function, and comfort and not so much on the cosmesis (the way it looks). While there are amputees who can afford to have more than one prosthesis (as in one for sports, one for life-likeness), most probably fall into the category with me of having one prosthesis to fit every occasion. So, this brings me again to my very awesome CPO Dennis who is trying something for me for the first time. He is fashioning a hard cover to slip on over my socket which will be shaped as closely as possible to my left leg.  I will then have the choice of wearing my prosthesis with or without the cover. As I explained in a previous post, prosthetics has an element of artistry to it. Here is an example of that.

Dennis starts with a hollow-center styrofoam cylinder

Next, he inserts my socket into the cylinder

After looking at my left leg, he uses an electric knife to carve the styrofoam into a leg shape.

Michelangelo

The shape after carving....pretty good.

The result after final carving and 'sanding', trying to get the ankle as small as possible.

Plastic goes on before wrapping the limb in plaster to make a mold.

Plaster mold after cutting it away from the socket.

Finished plaster mold which will be used to fabricate the cover.

....to be continued