I broke my ankle on March 5. I was carrying a basket of laundry down the basement stairs and slipped. I landed on my butt and slid the rest of the way down sitting up - with my right leg horked up in an inverted v-shape. Bouncing down, I was looking at it and thinking, "This can't be good." I fractured my fibula in two places, chipped a piece of bone off my tibia, and dislocated my ankle. The dislocation was popped back into place several hours later (while I was gratefully under sedation). A week later, I had surgery to afix a plate and 6 screws on one of the fractures; and to sort of meld the other fracture together with a 7th screw. For three weeks, I wore a "splint" - a partial plaster cast on the back and sides of my leg, wrapped over with cotton gauze. I now have a fiberglass cast (a lovely royal blue) for 5 weeks.
Archie has been particularly careful to give my poor leg a lot of extra love.