I fell over last Thursday (while watering my garden, nothing exciting) and hurt my ankle. Didn’t think too much of it. It didn’t hurt all that much and I could still put weight on it, go up and down the stairs etc.
My other half finally convinced me to see a doctor on Sunday since the swelling was quite bad. I’d been stubbornly refusing to go as I was convinced it was only a sprain and I didn’t want to be one of those people that clog up the waiting room with a minor ailment.
Apparently it is possible to be able to walk on an ankle that is broken, because mine was! I’ve spent the last few days in hospital after having surgery to stick a plate in there to hold it all together.
So yeah, don’t ignore your ouchies, sometimes they might be worse than you think!
If anyone has any brilliant suggestions on how to survive six weeks in plaster with one non-weight bearing leg I’d love to hear them.
Oh what to do with 6 weeks of no housework, cooking, washing…
I would read those books I have had on my wish list, but have never had long enough to sit still and get into,
I would get that bag of things I have always wanted to make for ME, and jolly well be self indulgent, for once,
I would definitely lap up all the offers of cups a tea, (how far would you have to hobble to the loo?!)
I would get on you tube and learn a new craft or a new technique
I would eat all the chocolates
Have a wonderful recovery,
(is it in a cast, maybe you could design a sock to slip over it to match your outfit, darling!)
Suzzie x
That’s really bad luck, hope it heals quickly. You could spend 6 weeks in the garden enjoying the sunshine (weather permitting!) and get one leg nice and brown
I have a similar story - few years back I fell over landing on one knee, got up, walked away thinking little of it. However my knee ballooned to the size of a football and after a xray it turned out I’d cracked my knee cap (A&E nurse didn’t think I had until she saw the xray). I had 6 weeks in plaster (pretty much from hip to ankle bone) using a zimmer frame as I couldn’t master crutches which effectively stranded me upstairs as we have no down stairs toilet (I had impressive abs and shoulder muscles after that and lost a lot of weight as I couldn’t get to the fridge (OH had to leave me a cool bag of food upstairs before he left for work so I didn’t starve)) followed by 4 weeks in a leg brace (at that point I could put weight on it but not bend it so I could finally do stairs). I relearnt how to knit and made many baby jumpers for the offspring of friends and family (there was a lady looking for volunteer knitters to make baby beanies for a charity on this forum earlier in the year). I also caught up on watching box sets (5 series of 24, 3 series of prison break, there was something else as well). If you haven’t already tried it you could get yourself a free 30 day trial of amazon prime which should get you access to lots of box sets online rather than having to beg/ borrow from friends. Add tags to all your listings if you haven’t already. Spend large quantites of time on pinterest putting together boards.
Can’t offer any advice on how to survive in the heat as I did mine in Jan so got to sit out the cold months tucked up in bed/ on the sofa watching the snow come down.
Hope you have a speedy recovery.
Sasha
It’s so easily done. I fell at work and hurt my wrist and hand cos I fell with a metal jug in my hand.
It hurt really bad all day through my shift but it went numb by the end so I thought it must be fine I can’t feel any pain now.
Three weeks later it was still really swollen and numb so I took myself to A&E and found I had a broken thumb and hand.
I spent 10 weeks in cast in the middle the summer. I know it’s not the same bit when you use crutches to walk sometimes it didn’t help. I got very good at scooting along the floor on my bum.
I watched lot of boxsets played xbox with one hand and two fingers.
It was fun.
Hope you heal up soon. Can’t help with advice on the heat as I just put up with it.
Assuming you now have a cast on, the only essential is a scratching device!!
I broke both my ankles at the same time years ago- I lost forks,rulers and all sorts in those casts!
& make sure when the cast comes off you have some amazing exfoliating wash- otherwise it’s just gross- especially through the summer!
A hip to ankle cast must have been a weighty beast, mine is only half that and is bad enough.
I’m in the same boat with the house layout. The loo and bedrooms are upstairs, everything else is downstairs. So I think I’ll be stuck upstairs for a bit until I master the art of going up and down on my backside.
Thanks for your good wishes everyone! I will certainly try and use all this ‘free’ time I have looming in front of me to learn something, anything, new otherwise I might go a little crazy.
I’ve always thought I might like to learn to crochet so now seems like the perfect opportunity!
Mine isn’t quite so bad…I was trying to run up some steps 2 at a time… (trying to convince myself that I was still young. Fell forward and hurt my wrist…
It’s OK…I told everyone…3 weeks later, I still couldn’t put any pressure on it. Yes it was broken…fortunately I was still able to hold a paint brush but not able to drive…sigh…
It was a bright red plastic cast so bulky but not too weighty (but yet some people still didn’t notice it and almost fell over it when I was in a wheelchair). If you’ve mastered crutches have a set at the top and bottom of the stairs (so you don’t need to wrangle the same set up and down) then it is just a case of doing tricep dips to lift your butt up/ down step by step using your core/ hip flexors to hold your leg out of the way. (you can probably borrow a second set from your local red cross organisation if you need to)
Once the other half forgot to put my baggie of food upstairs so I had to mount an expedition to raid the fridge which involved
sliding along on the floor to the stairs dragging the zimmer frame, (I couldn’t safely lower myself to the floor at the top of the stairs using only one leg so I had to do it from the edge of the bed)
tricep dripping my way down the stairs (still dragging the zimmer)
levering myself upright so that I can use the zimmer to effectively hop to the fridge (zimmer technique was lift body weight using shoulder muscles, ab crunch to swing legs forwards, lower weight onto good leg so that I could move zimmer forward and repeat, I even mastered reverse zimmering to work those back muscles)
do everything in reverse (yup dragging the zimmer up the stairs) but this time with a cool bag slung round my neck.
Took me a good half hour and probably burnt as many calories as were in my rations, I didn’t raid the fridge very often as you can imagine. By the time I was allowed to use my leg again I had lost soo much muscle from my thighs I could fit my hand/ lower arm down the cast to scratch my knee but my upper body and abs were in amazing shape! Some times you need to look on the bright side of these things.
Have fun crochetting.
Sasha
Good morning Melanie, I can’t believe it was 10 ago you had your accident, how are you doing? Please keep us all posted with what you have been up to whilst languishing on your bed! We miss you on the forums,
Suzzie x
The languishing lasted approximately 48 hours then I decided that there was no way I was going to last for even a couple of weeks just laying around in the same room so I braved the stairs and they weren’t that bad. Since I’m only in a cast up to my knee I can still kneel on the bad leg and going up and down the stairs that way is pretty easy.
I’ve also discovered I can still sew, although I have to use my left foot on the pedal instead of my right which is a bit weird, but it’s working … with the other leg propped up on a footstool … it’s not as uncomfortable as it sounds, just a bit of crafting yoga.
This big heavy plaster cast comes off on Wednesday and will be replaced with a lighter fibreglass one. The hardest part will be choosing the colour of the new one I think
I love the fibreglass casts you can do so much more with on.
I break bones very easily and have had a few only on my arms though.
I have purple twice, pink, blue twice and orange.
And I only got those colours to match my hair colour at the time.
I broke my write on the 13th Dec so went for the festive bright red pot! Never knew how much I relied on my knitting and crochet for de-stressing - 5 weeks in pot was no joke!! The pot has been off since 18th Jan - recovery is slower than I would have liked (i.e. can no longer knit at much usual rate) but at least I can still do my crafts albeit slower than before. Still struggle to write though without a pen grip!! Thank goodness for typing
Never ceases to amaze me how a bone can mend itself !!!
