I never thought broken bones suck as much as they do; I mean until now, I had never broken a bone, and I always assumed it was a rather easy physically and emotionally coping process. My thoughts towards this subject has changed dramatically. With a broken extremity, particularly a lower extremity, doing normal things on your own is turned into a very difficult task. Although, with crutches, I know have three lower extremities, everything is more challenging and even more annoying.
Below I have 7 of practical pieces of advice to help one with a broken lower extremity, particularly an ankle/foot, have a little easier transition into this temporary sucky lifestyle.
1. The correct way to use crutches & tackling the task of stairs.
If you go through some kind of medical program, you are taught how to properly use crutches. At first, it was a difficult task for me, but I had surgery the day before, was in a lot of pain, and on some nice medications as well. However, now I am a PRO at using crutches; but, as my dad says, Never get complacent.
When you get up from the couch or the bed, you want both crutches on your bad side; so, if you broke your right ankle, you would put both crutches on your right side. Using your right hand, you will use the crutches for balance while you push off the couch/bed with your left hand. You are now in a standing position. From there you will take one crutch from your right side to your left; place the underarm pad in your arm pit and grasp the handles. Here is the thing: if you are using crutches correctly, you should have little to no discomfort under your arms. You are supposed to use your hands and not your underarms to walk; if you use your underarms, they will get raw and sore very quickly.
If you are like me and use them constantly for, now, seven weeks, your underarms will get somewhat raw and sore; but if I was to use my underarms all the time to walk, they would be ten times worse.
Stairs Before I was discharged from the hospital, I was required to learn how to walk up and down three to four stairs with crutches. This can be a very difficult task when you are weak and not used to walking with one leg, so, the physical therapist gave me some practical advice for 'walking' up and down the stairs in my house. Instead of using the crutches to get upstairs and back down, sit on the stairs and scoot.
After a while, I got fed up with this scooting up and down the stairs and decided to start using my crutches. My parents and sister were hesitant at first to allow me to do this, but I did it anyways; and now, I am a PRO. Just, never get complacent.
When you get up from the couch or the bed, you want both crutches on your bad side; so, if you broke your right ankle, you would put both crutches on your right side. Using your right hand, you will use the crutches for balance while you push off the couch/bed with your left hand. You are now in a standing position. From there you will take one crutch from your right side to your left; place the underarm pad in your arm pit and grasp the handles. Here is the thing: if you are using crutches correctly, you should have little to no discomfort under your arms. You are supposed to use your hands and not your underarms to walk; if you use your underarms, they will get raw and sore very quickly.
If you are like me and use them constantly for, now, seven weeks, your underarms will get somewhat raw and sore; but if I was to use my underarms all the time to walk, they would be ten times worse.
Stairs Before I was discharged from the hospital, I was required to learn how to walk up and down three to four stairs with crutches. This can be a very difficult task when you are weak and not used to walking with one leg, so, the physical therapist gave me some practical advice for 'walking' up and down the stairs in my house. Instead of using the crutches to get upstairs and back down, sit on the stairs and scoot.
After a while, I got fed up with this scooting up and down the stairs and decided to start using my crutches. My parents and sister were hesitant at first to allow me to do this, but I did it anyways; and now, I am a PRO. Just, never get complacent.
2. Showering with a boot, a cast, or an external fixator.
The first night I came home from the hospital, I had a black boot which covered my foot and stopped right below my knee. I had to take a shower - I felt so gross being that I hadn't showered in a good three days due to my circumstances. My dad had gotten a shower chair and my mom and sister helped me do the typical trash bag-taped-over-the-boot. This was not comfortable at all. My sister had to, essentially, shower me as if I was in a nursing home; the whole time I was in the shower, I was wanting to elevate my foot for comfort.
The next shower went much better, since my dad did some practical research and found that a girl who broke a lower extremity decided to sit in the shower and stick her affected extremity outside instead of keeping it inside the shower with her. We all thought this would work better. . . so my sister grabbed her chair from her room and two pillows to let my foot rest outside of the shower as I sat inside on the shower chair. We closed the shower curtains by tucking them around my leg, trying to minimize the amount of water that would get on the floor. We continued this same ritual with my cast and my external fixator.
Six weeks later - I have coughed up the courage to take off my gauze pads and take my foot in the shower. It is amazing what six plus weeks of only sponge bathing your foot can do - buildup of dead skin cells may sound gross to you, but trust me, it is grosser in person.
The next shower went much better, since my dad did some practical research and found that a girl who broke a lower extremity decided to sit in the shower and stick her affected extremity outside instead of keeping it inside the shower with her. We all thought this would work better. . . so my sister grabbed her chair from her room and two pillows to let my foot rest outside of the shower as I sat inside on the shower chair. We closed the shower curtains by tucking them around my leg, trying to minimize the amount of water that would get on the floor. We continued this same ritual with my cast and my external fixator.
Six weeks later - I have coughed up the courage to take off my gauze pads and take my foot in the shower. It is amazing what six plus weeks of only sponge bathing your foot can do - buildup of dead skin cells may sound gross to you, but trust me, it is grosser in person.
3. What to wear, what to wear?
When you have something that makes your foot twice or three times as large, putting shorts or pants on can becomes challenging. I have had the least trouble with my cast and the most trouble with my external fixator. Fortunately, I have been able to put on shorts and some pants with my external fixator; the pants must be, to an extent, stretchy like sweat pants or yoga pants {not leggings, they are too tight-stretchy}. It can also depend on the size of your eternal fixator as to what you will be able to manage to stick on your butt.
If you go to a gym, and are wearing an external fixator, try to put on some kind of shoe - because if you have luck like me, some crazy person will tell you to get some shoes on or get lost.
If you go to a gym, and are wearing an external fixator, try to put on some kind of shoe - because if you have luck like me, some crazy person will tell you to get some shoes on or get lost.
4. Sleeping with a boot, a cast, or an external fixator.
I am not sure about you, but I cannot sleep on my back. I was able to do it while I was in the hospital and a few days to maybe one or two weeks after, but sleeping on my back isn't my thing. Each time I got something new on my foot, I had to relearn how to do everything I had already learned how to do with my previously contraption - to include how to sleep.
I was extremely careful with my foot when I had my boot since everything was new to me and 'being overwhelmed' was an understatement. I had just started getting used to sleeping on my side with my boot when the doctor forced my foot into a cast. I hated the cast at first, and then, five days later, I received, what my best friend named 'Archie,' my external fixator; I had never loved my cast more. Sleeping with the cast was the easiest out of my three situations.
Sleeping with an external fixator can be really tricky, but I was able to figure out how to sleep on my sides despite a metal rod sticking through the middle of my foot. The biggest problem I have now is my back and hips hurting; but I am able to sleep rather well - depending on the night.
I was extremely careful with my foot when I had my boot since everything was new to me and 'being overwhelmed' was an understatement. I had just started getting used to sleeping on my side with my boot when the doctor forced my foot into a cast. I hated the cast at first, and then, five days later, I received, what my best friend named 'Archie,' my external fixator; I had never loved my cast more. Sleeping with the cast was the easiest out of my three situations.
Sleeping with an external fixator can be really tricky, but I was able to figure out how to sleep on my sides despite a metal rod sticking through the middle of my foot. The biggest problem I have now is my back and hips hurting; but I am able to sleep rather well - depending on the night.
5. Your bed, the kitchen table, or the couch. . . where to sit, where to sit?
During the first few weeks of my recovery, I rotated through three sitting spots - my bed, the kitchen table, and the couch. My bed got really old really fast; I got annoyed with sitting in the same room for 24 hours straight, so I started spending more time downstairs. As time went on, I get braver and spent some time outside on the swing set to get some fresh air, Vitamin D, and decrease my risk for stir crazy-ness. I would get out of the house more often, but I have class only once a week {due to issues arising with academic stuff related to my injury - which is actually a bummer to me} AND social anxiety (see #7).
My advice to you, so you don't go stir crazy - start a new hobby; write a blog; write a story; read a book about living a healthier lifestyle; watch Criminal Minds; makes your sister's graduation gift; that is, in addition to studying, of course.
6. Alternatives to crutches: the scooter and the knee crutch.
People may look at you funny if you ride around on your scooter or if you go hands free and knee-crutch it out, but after a while, plain-ole crutches can get annoying. Trying to bake can become challenging with plan-ole crutches; trying to get the honey and canola oil from the pantry to the counter in one trip can become close to impossible, and when you are stubborn like me and want to do everything in one trip, your underarms turn into crutch-extension-legs. Who knew having three legs was harder than the average of two. These may become expensive alternatives, but they can also be helpful for certain workplaces and aspects of everyday life.
Try not to hop around on one foot like I have started doing. . .
7. Social Anxiety
Admit it, odds are the majority of people have not seen external metal pieces sticking through someone's foot; I mean, it is possible to work your whole life as a nurse and see an external fixator only once - your junior year of nursing school in your med-surge textbook. So, when you are the unlucky one walking around {not really} with an external fixator on your foot, you become a hot topic for everyone within fifty feet of you. I have coined this bothersome feeling I get when I go in public social anxiety.
Below is my take on how I feel with social anxiety - this is one of the many reasons I am happy to be getting this thing off my foot in the next few days.
You know you broke your ankle and have an external fixator when you become popular and you come down with a severe case of social anxiety. Here are some of the things people would say that would absolutely drive me insane; they are listed from most absolutely annoying to less-absolutely annoying.
Sorry in advance if this comes off to harshly.1. When people associate my fixator with a "Christmas tree". . . "Awh, it looks like a Christmas tree" . . . "It reminds me of Christmas" . . .2. Does it hurt? Okay, so you are looking at my foot which apparently has a pin stuck all the way through the width of my foot and two screws in my shin. Are you seriously asking me right now if it hurts? Please, answer your own question by imagining pins and screws stuck inside your own leg.3. Did your doctor give you medicine for that? Well, let's think through this. Doctors normally prescribe medicine for people who are going to be in a lot of pain. It looks like it would be painful, and is indeed painful, so logically the answer you your questions would be yes. . .4. What did you do to your foot? I broke it. . . Oh really?Seriously, that was a conversation. Like, what else could I have done to my bone when I have external hardware on my foot. . sprain it? {sarcasm}5. What do you call that thingy on your foot? Maybe I can let this one slide, since seeing an external fixator is not a regular thing.And an experience which you would never expect to happen: When you are at the gym with an external fixator on your foot, and some jerk comes up to you to tell you, "I hate to be a debbie-downer, but you can't workout if you don't have a shoe on." Well thanks, jerk. Next time you see me, I will have a sparkly black dress shoe on. Glad you don't have a rod through the bottom of your foot.
**Whether you are a nurse, an upcoming doctor, or just a plain-ole-Jane who doesn't know what an external fixator is. . . know that by the time you see that person's foot, many people have already asked and said the same things you are about to ask and say more times than they can count. Please, think before you ask.
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If you have any advice for rehabilitation, such as a type of brace to wear after a broken ankle or practical advice for the person learning how to walk again, please, let me know!
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
James 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
Isaiah 53:4-5 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.