My beloved sister, who is clearly jealous of all the attention I received when I broke my ankle two Aprils ago, decided to grab a little of the limelight by replicating my achievement. But she elected to outdo me: instead of breaking one ankle bone, she broke three!
She is also apparently aiming for the Guinness Book of World Records by lugging around the largest cast ever built by an orthopedic surgeon. It makes her leg resemble the trunk of one of the smaller sequoia trees. Getting it into the car is like shoehorning a sewer pipe into a sardine can.
Originally the period after surgery during which she was required to keep weight off her ankle was supposed to be two weeks. Unfortunately, it turned out that the damage was so great, she is now confined to non-weight-bearing for six weeks. Believe me, I sympathize!
She cannot sleep comfortably in bed with this monstrosity of a cast, since it has to remain elevated for fear of blood clots; so she is spending her nights — and days, for that matter — on a recliner chair in the living room. From this perch she tools around the house when necessary with her leg propped up on a wheeled “knee-roller.”
I had one of those, too, when my ankle was broken — and it was a godsend! Nothing like my experience in 2007.
In 2007 or thereabouts, when I had foot tendon surgery, I had to lie on my back on the sofa for six weeks, and could only crawl to the bathroom. I was supplied by a local orthopedic accessories dealer with a knee-roller, but it was hardly the Cadillac model.
Nowadays, knee rollers are light-weight, nimble little aluminum or titanium machines that can make 27-point turns in small areas, and fold up compactly to fit into your car. They come outfitted with padded knee-rests, hand brakes, front wheels that turn, baskets for carrying necessities, and lots of other little additions which make your unpleasant situation less unpleasant.
The one I had in 2007, after my foot tendon surgery, was made of wood. Heavy wood. (It might have been barn-construction-grade oak, for all I know.) No padding. No brakes. The front wheel didn’t turn, so I could only go straight ahead — and without brakes, you can imagine how many walls I ran into! It weighed about the same as a small Volkswagen, so trying to get it into the car required the exertions of several sumo wrestlers — and since it didn’t fold up, you practically had to rent a U-Haul to schlep it around.
Seeing my sister laid up as she is makes me flash back to my own days on the knee-roller — and I can only pray that I never break another such bone! The pain is as nothing compared to the inconvenience — although when I broke my ankle, I had to hike back down a mountain on the broken bone, which was pretty painful. All my sister had to do was lie on the foyer floor and dial 911.
But it’s amazing how many little things you do every day that you can’t do on a broken ankle, and how you take those things for granted. How many times a day do you say to yourself, “I think I’ll pop into the kitchen for a glass of milk?” Such “popping” becomes considerably complicated by an inability to walk. It has given me an even greater respect for people whose inability to walk is not temporary.
Just maneuvering the knee-roller around in a bathroom is an exercise in logistics and driving ability. My sister is fortunate in that her house is single-level. Mine is not. She can roll from kitchen to living room to bathroom to bedroom without difficulty. I had to crawl up the steps on my hands and knees to take a shower.
And taking a shower with a cast that cannot get wet is another exercise in logistics. I remember sitting on a small metal-and-plastic stool in the bathtub in the second-floor bathroom, trying to take a shower with one leg hanging over the side of the tub. Unfortunately, the stool was very old and frail, and in the middle of the procedure its back legs began to buckle. Eventually I was deposited flat on my back with the shower water cascading into my face, and one leg still dangling over the side of the tub. I don’t remember how I got out — perhaps my cries for help, even muffled as they were by the flood, brought assistance. Maybe I managed to hoist myself out of the tub by sheer brute strength. All I know is — I don’t want to do that again.
Modern technology has brought relief for this problem in the form of a heavy plastic “bag” with a large rubber gasket at the top. You slide your casted leg down into the bag, and the gasket molds itself water-tightly around your thigh. This is a huge improvement over the old “leg-dangling” method of showering — but I still don’t want to have to mess with it again.
So I’m heading to my sister’s house to see if I can be of use to her in her convalescence. It is tremendously tedious to have to sit in one chair, in one position, 24/7. Poor thing! The least I can do is let her beat me occasionally at cards, fix her meals and make her feel like the center of attention, which she fully deserves to be.
Never let it be said that I didn’t do the
least I could do …
Ellen McDaniel-Weissler is a LaVale freelance writer whose column appears on alternate weekends.