Coming to terms with restrictions due to a broken leg is difficult for everyone, and especially for people who consider themselves strong, independent, not used to asking for help from others. Our author has tried to summarize personal experience gained over seven and a half weeks, four of which had to be spent with a cast on her leg due to an injury.
The spectrum of problems is revealed not at the moment when you only consider the cast, but a little later. During the treatment period, you will inevitably have to get used to the temporary realities of life on one leg. What can I advise?
1. As much as you would like to fall into a depressive state, try to refrain from it.
Accept the fact that nothing can be changed. Do not waste time and energy looking for the guilty, reflecting on why this happened to you.
Do not scold yourself, do not curse “that day”, do not regret that you did something that led to a broken leg. Sometimes it’s enough just to stumble, get out of the car unsuccessfully, or stumble on the stairs.
If you feel sorry for yourself (and this is normal!), take half an hour a day for melancholy, and then tell yourself: “That’s it, I don’t think about it anymore, it’s not discussed.”
A detailed study of the topic of how professional athletes rehabilitated after injuries helped me get away from harmful reflection. I learned about the fate of the gymnast, world champion Elena Mukhina. Having imagined the difficulties she had to face, I immediately stopped complaining about my temporary trials.
2. Walk carefully. Your key task is not to fall again
After all, this can aggravate the injury. Yes, the familiar, comfortable world turns into a continuous obstacle course. Ten marble steps to your favorite restaurant, which used to be overcome by itself, now resemble climbing Everest. Curbs, uneven sidewalks, shopping, driving a car, and even just walking in the park with headphones on – all this becomes an unattainable luxury.
Evaluate the coverage of surfaces on the floor of the house: remove all sliding fabrics and rugs. Avoid wearing slippers or socks on your working foot if they pose a risk of falling.
If you have previously regularly played sports, it will be much easier to withstand the load and cope with coordination. If you didn’t exercise and found this article to help a loved one during the recovery period after an injury, start doing physical activity yourself today.
3. Learn to appreciate your slowness
If you dreamed of forgetting how to rush and fuss, this is the chance. The pace of life slows down by half or even three times. Processes drag on indefinitely.
Have you seen how cats prepare to jump? You will have to learn how to do the same: first you plan an action or a series of them, visually assess the distance and position of objects on the ground, then determine the trajectory in your mind and then head to the intended point.
The experience of cutting off unnecessary movements, starting with small things and ending with global actions, can also be considered valuable. It can save a lot of time in the future. Often a pause leads to a rapid increase in speed in the future.
4. Choose clothes with deep pockets or find a small backpack
This is necessary to put small things there for transfer from room to room. You need crutches to keep your balance. Both hands are needed to hold the crutches. That is, you either walk or do something with your hands.
I used a lightweight beach bag from my favorite hotel. To transfer liquids, you can use a thermo mug or a shaker. By the way, writing messages on the go will no longer work either.
It will be forbidden to wear weights even after the removal of the cast for several months. This time is another reason to unlearn loading yourself like a donkey, if you used to do it for some reason.
5. Don’t be afraid of lack of appetite
This may be due to depressed mood. So if you wanted to lose weight and could not choose the time, here it is!
Sour-milk products, cottage cheese, yogurts (without sweet fillers), cereals, black bread will be useful. Everything that does not heavily burden the stomach and discourages appetite, with a high content of calcium, is suitable. Also, drink as much water as possible.
In order not to turn cooking into a quest: take out only the most necessary things from the refrigerator. Prepare healthy, simple meals with minimal effort.
6. Don’t Forget to Target
The luxury of a full-fledged shower becomes temporarily unavailable: you can’t wet the plaster, and getting into the bath is a dangerous undertaking. However, a broken leg is not a reason to walk around with an unwashed head.
Tidying up regularly is uplifting: consider the easiest way to do this, depending on the configuration of your bathroom and what is in it. For example, if there is a shower at home, buy and put a plastic chair in it, on which you will sit during leisurely procedures.
7. Keep dressing up
My leg was cast from thigh to toe, so I only wore dresses: the warm climate allowed this. You can also wear wide trousers, but they are more difficult to put on if the stretch is not good enough, and also if you do not have an assistant.
8. Use time with benefit and pleasure
During this period, you can do a lot, something that you didn’t have enough time for before: from reading books, drawing, needlework, learning a foreign language to watching movies and TV shows. Or maybe you even want to learn a new profession?
9. Rejoice: even with a broken leg, you will be in good physical shape!
After some time of normal life in new conditions, you will notice that muscles have grown on the arms and back, and the working leg has begun to resemble the leg of an athlete.
During the period of wearing a 3 kg cast (which helped not really blame myself for losing shape), I eagerly and anxiously tried to imagine how the leg would look after it was removed. Everything turned out not so bad and easily fixable.
10. Notice how many good people are around
I broke my leg on a business trip to the islands of the Indian Ocean. But I had to continue to do business, and then fly through Dubai and Istanbul to Antalya. I was worried about a lot of questions, for example: “How will I get on and off the boat?” Not to mention how to look at dinner, carry a bag with a computer, a suitcase and take an intercontinental flight.
On the second day of walking with the help of crutches in one of the hotels, a couple from France approached me: the man adjusted the height of the accessories that I hated at that moment and showed me how to walk the easiest way. In the mountains, this man broke his legs three times and turned into an injury guru. Which, by the way, did not discourage him from continuing to ski.
Often strangers came up to me, asked what happened, asked if I needed help, took the initiative, tried to cheer me up, shared their stories of fractures.
In conclusion, I want to say about my main realization: what a happiness it is to move! Looking at the leg released from captivity, I thought about how quickly muscles degrade without load in just four weeks … A broken leg prepared new ground for me to rethink the main values in life – health (both physical and psychological) and time.
Tatiana Prolesko
Polyglot, teaches foreign languages.