Audrey from Orlando, Florida, broke her ankle in the beginning of December 2007. She and a friend were riding a wagon down the driveway and swerved too sharply. They both tumbled out onto the pavement and Audrey’s ankle got crunched in the process. X-rays and a CT scan showed later that her tibia was fractured along three planes, one of which was the growth plate.

First she got a splint and waited four days for the surgery with some pain and not much sleep. She decided to have general anaesthesia while the doctor positioned her bones, but she opted to get a full-leg cast rather than having a below-knee cast that would require screws inserted into the bones to hold them in place while they heal. When Audrey woke up after surgery she looked at her leg and laughed at how easy it had been. Before, she was anxious about the thought of surgery.

In the next days her cast became quite colourful, as all her friends were signing it. Audrey’s cast looked like a wall of graffiti or a really colourful tattoo. It was fun for everyone to add their mark to her leg. After one month she got a short cast, but in the first days she could not bend her knee.