Jan- My daughter went to Duke Undergrad. You are lucky- Duke has a great medical center. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area and we have great doctors here too. Do they change your cast every two weeks? They did for me. The weirdest thing each time they changed it, was seeing a hairy skinnier leg. I took baby wipes in, and rubbed my leg down, while waiting for the doctor to show up each time, when they took me temporarily out of the cast every other week. That really helped to take off the orange die stuff they rub on for surgery and also the dead skin. I got hair on the top of my foot too which was really weird to me too, but I guess super common, as many ladies in online blogs have mentioned it, so don't be shocked. It quickly goes away after the cast comes off (probably a month or so). I read somewhere it happens because the body wants to protect your skin from irriation of the cast. Another fun addition to this adventure 
I didn't have the cast over my toes and was instructed to move my toes as much as possible. My cast started right above my toes.
I am 6 months out and doing great with a trimalleolar brake. I walked on the beach, and really rugged bumpy grass by the beach, for the first time since my break, for the last two days. A month or two ago I wouldn't have been able to have done this, because it constantly jiggles the ankle and all my tendons and ligaments would have been on fire after a few steps with that kind of stress. Now it was a breeze. I did notice my ankle, for the first time in a while, was slightly more swollen than what I am used to at night, due to all the walking I did today and especially in rugged conditions for a recovering ankle. Normally my ankle doesn't feel swollen, but still looks bigger than the other ankle all the time. I think the last bit of swelling goes down in the final 6 months. For me, I kept reading from people posting that at 4 months I would feel alive again, and that's exactly how it worked for me too. I finally felt like I could walk down the street, with a slight limp, but I could walk around again like a normal person! Then in month 5, I worked a lot on strengthening the ankle further and the limp decreased in half and by month 6 it disappeared, except if I extremely overwork it for the day, then I notice it a bit. I have noticed it, for example, the last two days on vacation from walking in the sand a lot , carrying my grandkids all over the place and walking like I did today, 20,000 steps on my Fit Bit , which is over 8 miles. This gives you idea though, that life does get back to normal again!
To answer your question Pinupgirl, first I had a velcro shoe put on my foot (with the cast) at about week 7, cast off week 8, into boot for over a month (it probably was two months). It took 5 weeks from start of PWB to walking without aids. There is also PT, stretching of the foot right, left, forward, back, and then strengthening of the ankle. The whole process hurts a bit because everything is in a kind of frozen, shrunken state when you come out of the cast and you have to fire everything up. It hurts to stretch the tendons and ligaments back out. Take a Motrin in the morning and night. It solves that problem pretty well. Good luck. Sorry to hear you did this. It is super frustrating, but you will walk again!
