'Bout three weeks ago, I took my eyes off the ball while skateboarding and paid for it with a broken fibia and tibula, Pretty clean break, had a titanium rod and two screws put in during surgery. (Though the worst part was lying “in stretch” the entire night before I could be operated on. Seeing them drill through my heel with a longass manual drill and then hang weights from it ranks as the most surreal experience in my life.)
Got out of the (damned) hospital about two weeks ago and am now just about at the phase where staying indoors and in pain is driving me nuts. I’m on Pinex Forte, which helps OK. (Only problem is my MD will only give me one week’s prescription at a time.) My girlfriend’s been a dream, it has to be said.
What I’m mostly left wondering now is how long I’m going to be off my feet (I’m non-weight bearing for at least another month) and if anyone has any experiences they’d like to share?
Wheels outside, crutches inside. (I am considering hot-rod laquering my wheelchair. The fine from the place I borrowed it will be worth it.) Thanks for the backpack tip - I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. My biggest problem in the current is the complete and utter inability to serve myself food. As in, I can make it, bake it, fry it, stir and dish it up.
I just can’t carry the damn plate with me back to my chair. :smack: (And drinks are worse. Seriously; if I didn’t have an extremely helpful girlfriend, I’d probably have bought half a dozen baby cups with lids on them.)
I broke my leg in November 2004, and it took me about three or four months to start hobbling around, I think. By the six month mark, I don’t remember much of a limp at all.
I hate getting down on the knee they inserted the rod through even six years later, though.
To transport your food, place the food on a tray and do a ‘tabletop shuffle’ from surface to surface (stove to counter to table to bookshelf…) or if there are large, open floor spaces, have a wheeled desk chair to nudge to where you’re going.
Also for getting around, a walker/frame is often more manageable than crutches - it’ll be much more stable and unlikely to fall out of reach like a crutch will.
I had something similar one time when a roll of steel coil fell off a crane and shattered the leg. Doctor said it would be in a cast for six weeks. Then it was another six weeks and so on until six months. I suspect that will be your case too. Adjust for the long term.
My MIL had her leg shattered below the knee in a motorcycle accident in 1991. The paramedics were picking up bone fragments off the road, that’s how bad it was. ( She and my FIL* were T-boned by a girl in a car that didn’t see them.)
She was in a cast up to her thigh for nearly a year with the spector of ‘we may have to amputate’ because of it not healing right. She did everything correctly
( except the times we caught her outside in the winter shoveling snow. She’s German. She can’t sit still. The cast came off and everything was wunderbar.
Don’t go to a hospital supply place for supplies. Check out your local salvation army/good will or thrift store. You can pick up anything and everything there (call first, since you have mobility issues. ) for a pittance compared to what the retail price is. Crutches and canes are usually plentiful. (About $5) Wheelchairs $10-25) sell the day the day they come in. Shower chairs ($10) barely stick around longer than a day.
I hope you feel better.
*My FIL injuries were more life changing. He’s paralyzed from the nipples down.
Or even actual padded biking gloves such as these.
Someone else here recently suggested a knee crutch such as the ones in these images which obviously may not be appropriate for you at this point. Or even a knee scooter. Obviously both of these depend on your ability to bend your knee; if your cast doesn’t permit that then ignore me…
About 4 years ago my car was T-boned at an intersection by a much larger car.
Like your case, I broke both bones (tibia and fibula). The breaks weren’t entirely clean but in the end I don’t think it mattered. 3 months later I went to the JavaOne Conference on my own, even though I still had to use a crutch to get around. Not far much longer after that I was able to move around rather well (without limping), and by now it’s a distant memory.
Even though it was a pretty serious injury, I didn’t have very much pain. I didn’t use much medication and was on my own two feet in almost no time. I didn’t even need to go to rehab. A couple of things:
I hope you have someone (SO, family) to help you rest your leg for the first couple of weeks
Don’t rush the process! If you need to use crutches/wheelchair/whatever, do so!
Don’t despair. If you’re reasonably healthy, your bones will heal. But, again: don’t try to overexert them too soon.
Good luck! Get healthy soon! (BTW: I’m definitely not a doctor. This is obviously not medical advice. Listen to your doctor’s advice!)
While not exactly a broken bone (in the sense of it knitting back together), I did lose my left leg above the knee in a van accident. I learned that you can learn to carry all sorts of things with crutches, either by using a plastic grocery bag and holding it with two of your fingers while holding the crutch handle with your thumb and two small fingers (you can also carry a plate with two fingers and your thumb, while holding the crutch grip with your other two fingers.
You can also get around short distances with one crutch, this lets you hold a plate with the other hand.
There is always hopping, but I imagine that largely depends on if you can bend your knee or not, and if you can tolerate any pain this generates in the leg from being bounced around. With hopping I can carry a full cup of liquid, bowl of soup, plates of food, its all about how you launch and land, using your arms as extra shock absorbers and stabilizers for what your carrying.
As for the wheelchair, see if you can find some sort of tray table that can attach to one of the arms of the chair. You can also use your good leg to propel the chair while your hands hold the food etc…
If the wheelchair has desk arms, they can be reversed so the high side is in front. That would help immensely in carrying a tray around. Just flip the arms around and install them on opposite sides of the wheelchair.
