Which means, for one thing that I’ll probably double my post count here over the next several weeks since I’m told I’m pretty much immobile until I can drive again.
I was climbing the stairs in the dark the other night, when one of my cats (the black one, oddly enough) ran in front of me, made me trip and say “ow”.
I limped around the house for the weekend, then decided today to get it looked at. Thinking it was sprained, I figured I’d get a wrap, a nice prescription and get sent home. But noooooooo…
It’s a pretty clean break of the whichever is the smaller bone in my leg.
The Wife, who was already mad at me (who knows?) is no doubt overjoyed at having to help me get around the house or wherever.
Sorry to hear that! But hey, at least you get a little vacation for a while! I suggest you get a little bell, and every time you want something, ting ting ting! Then you’d get to move in with your mom after your wife kicks you out of the house!
So THAT’s what it is! I smashed mine to smithereens about 7 years ago, ripped out my achilles tendon and cracked my talus in half too! And I can still never remember which bone has been replaced by a big ole piece of metal.
It’s your right leg I’m guessing? I actually figured out how to drive using my left foot for the brake and gas instead of my right. I just put my right leg out across the floorboard out of the way, and then used my left foot (pinky toe in for the gas, for me it was just as sensitive as using my right foot). Ack, much sympathy!
Ah but - is the BusCar automatic? Because that doesn’t work on manuals, you need both feet; it’s the reason my Uncle J has to get automatics: he left about half of one of his knees stuck to a road, some 50 years ago.
May I suggest some PopCap games? They have a wide variety and they’re “try before you pay”. You need internet access to get them, but not to play them. Might avoid having you need to move down to Tucson permanently.
Yeah, that’s what I had to do - I went to the orthopedic clinic with the MRIs that they only had taken because I’m a runner and they wanted to make absolutely sure that I would be okay to run… oh look a stress fracture, so I had to learn how to drive with a cast on my right leg immediately. To get home. It was a little hair-raising at first.
You know how every time you sprain an ankle, it’s easier to do it again? I’m on #17, overall. The worst part is the pain. Definitely the pain. I’ve never broken anything, though, and I hear that’s even worse. Sorry, dude.
WhyNot Excellent! Now I have a way to remember that!
Classic Sense My right ankle history: At 15, partially torn Achilles (football). At 19, two torn ligaments (stupid college trick sliding on ice). At 23, seven torn ligaments halfway up my leg, almost twisted my foot clean off my leg. At 32, bad ankle sprain that was probably something torn but I refused to see the doctor out of pure disgust.
I am the King of Ankle Strength and Flexibility! My daily workout includes no less than 15 minutes doing various rollovers, stretches, and strength moves for my knees and ankles. The doc, reading the x-ray said “so, you’ve got quite a bit of scar tissue here, eh?”
His offhand guess is that when I rolled the ankle on the stairs that my ligaments and tendons stretched admirably (before this I could literally walk on the outside or inside of my ankles without difficulty). So they held up and the bone cracked instead.
Fabulous. Yay for stretching!
PS: I forgot how much I hate crutches.
PPS: Cuervo is the only one happy that I’ll be sitting home for a while.
I got a ton of 'em. You didn’t think nurses just really remembered all this stuff, did you? We have mnemonics for our mnemonics, fer crissakes! (Although I think that particular one came from my anatomy class in massage school.)
Well, yes, there is that. But keep on stretching! You don’t want to end up with a stiff ankle down the road. Flexibility is good, even if it can reveal weaknesses in other things like bones. And really, if you’ve got a nice clean break and do your physical therapy like they tell you to, a broken ankle heals with far fewer aches and pains and chance for reinjury than a sprained ankle, in the long run.
I shall do so!
Also, I’m starting to stink. What’s easier, bagging this thing, and trying to balance one footed in the shower, or soaking leisurely with my leg stuck outside in a nice hot bath?
True story. I broke my fibula in the ankle area In Feb. '04. I was convinced it was a sprain, but went to emergency where they x-rayed it and pronounced it broken. So into the hospital where they said they would operate and put a metal plate in. But it would take several days for the swelling to go down else they would not be able to close the incision. So they put me in a hospital bed and put ice packs all around and said I couldn’t get of bed, even to urinate. Well, I don’t pee very well prone and they did relent and I could stand on one foot by the bed and pee. The break came on a Tuesday and a surgeon came around on Thursday night and said he would operate the next day–unless there were so many emergencies that there was no OR available. He explained that he would put a plate in and then a cast and I would have to use crutches for six weeks and some amount of time on rehab. This did not fill me with glee. I was 67 and had never used crutches.
So I got no food all day on Friday until at 9PM when they said the operation would be postponed one day. And around 8:30 Saturday morning I was wheeled down to the corridor next to the OR and a different surgeon–an older man–came around and explained that he would operate and put in a plate in, but there would be no cast and I should start putting weight on it right away, as much as I could comfortably bear and that if I did that and walked as much as possible, using a cane at first, I probably would not need any rehab. I asked about what the younger surgeon had said and he said with some emotion, "I’ve been telling those guys for 25 years that once a plate is in it is stabilized and you can put weight on it.
At any rate it turned out fine. At first, I just circled the ring between our LR, DR, kitchen and vestibule. (No thought of going outside–it was an ice rink.) After a couple weeks I started driving up to a mall a mile away (he recommended that I try it on a quiet Sunday to make sure I was capable of driving) and walking for a half hour. At any rate, it turned out just as he had said. With no rehab needed.
