Incapacitated... X_X

[Tallulah]

So last Tuesday night I went out to the work's Christmas party. I grabbed my free drink and went upstairs with some of my friends, because there were two floors of music, some of the more modern stuff was upstairs, with the cheesy Christmas party classics below. Only the bar on the bottom floor was open so when I finished my freebie, I was on my way back downstairs to get another, when I slipped, fell, and hurt my left leg. My leg just went numb, and I knew the pain would come when I would stand up, so I was just sitting at the bottom of the stairs with all my stuff (snow boots, handbag, and hat, coat, scarf in a plastic bag) scattered everywhere) for about five minutes. All my workmates were crowded round and I was saying "I've hurt my leg, I've hurt my leg," over and over again. I was eventually moved to a chair where the first-aider said he would either strap my leg up or get me to hospital. Even though I really wanted to stay, I knew I wouldn't be able to really enjoy myself, so I asked to get to hospital, as I've been injured before, and my boyfriend, Paul, has always said if I get hurt like I hurt my knee 2 years ago, to get it checked out. My colleague Steph and a lady from another store, Helena, got me to Helena's car, and she drove me up to A&E (ER). Paul met me up there as I phoned him en-route.

I got it x-rayed and they found that I have fractured my left fibula, at the bottom near the ankle. I'm in plaster and on crutches, and because it's so icy at the moment I fear for my life going out there! I had to literally crawl the 7 feet from the taxi back from hospital to the front door.

At the moment it is all I can do to haul myself about the house; I worry about hopping about on my 'good' leg because my knee is a bit weak from the miswchief I did it 2 years ago. I have to shuffle on my bottom up the stairs to the bathroom, and I haven't had a wash for about 2 days. Worst of all I have had to send Paul out to get my shopping... Mercifully, the painkillers seem to be doing their job.

So.. I ask you: Have you ever been in a similar situation, and how did you cope? Anything from getting about to getting rid of the itch underneath the cast? :/

[Furore]

For a couple days I was more or less incapacitated.
Some free advice from me:
Don't go getting your stomach muscles cut if you can help it.
The worst part is I laugh fairly frequently and with cut stomach muscles that hurts like bloody anything.

[Unknown Entity]

Jeese, that sounds painful Tallulah. D=
I hope you're able to get some rest and that you're better soon. =(

When I was at secondary school, I used to help my tutor run a book stall for charity on open evenings and parents evenings. There were always loads of books as we got more donations to sell than actually buyers of the books already there (-_-). So there were loads of boxes, that had to come from the second floor down to the foyer, a task which we had a lot of help with from the caretakers. However, at about 8pm, the caretakers got busy cleaning up the main hall and canteen areas, so it was up to me and my friend to take all the boxes back up.

The boxes were heavy, but not heavy enough that I couldn't carry them. I made the mistake of taking two all the way back up to the second floor once because I think I was trying to show off (and I just wanted to get out of there - I'd been in school from 9am to 8pm on those days). Anyway, I did feel a slight pull on my back, but it didn't hurt. It murdered like **** the next day though, so much to the point that I couldn't even sit up in bed or walk around the house - don't even get me started on using the stairs or going to the bathroom. I spent all day laying flat on my back and counting the cracks on the ceiling - I tried playing the PSP, but dropping it on my face didn't help matters.

Oh. When I was younger, I ripped my calf open on a nail that had been keeping the ladder on the bunk-bed together. Ladder just broke when I was climbing it, and I fell down. I didn't even know I'd ripped my leg open until my brother stopped laughing at me for falling and saw blood pouring out of a wound. That alerted mum, and she panicked, then I panicked, then we sorted it out. It didn't hurt, as far as I can remember, but seeing my own blood dripping down my leg, and seeing my muscles scared the shit out of me. The nurse I saw the next day told me not to walk on my leg with the strips (it probably could have done with stitches, but I was so young and scared, I just got strips to put on it) or it wouldn't heal. So I was sat on a sofa for a week watching my leg heal, and hopping everywhere. xD;

[Sasquatch]

Hope you get to feeling better soon, Tallulah. I can't help much because I've never broken a bone that needed a cast (only ribs and fingers/thumbs, and never got medical attention for them), but I can't imagine it'd be easy.

As far as coping with injuries goes ... well, I had a wisdom tooth yanked out today, so I'm kinda-sorta in the same boat. I still had all four wisdom teeth (at 25 years old, that ain't bad), and some of them had given me slight pain for short periods of time before, but that's it. So when I had them checked out in mobilization, they told me that since they had never been real problems and didn't look too bad, then should come out, but they don't need to come out, and we can wait. Apparently, we could only wait until yesterday when I woke up with one of them (lower right) really hurting, so I went to the dental sick call and they decided to yank it today. But I'm not at home, and I'm not at a large, well-set-up base, I'm in a crappy little FOB. So instead of putting me to sleep or giving me some type of sedative, I had a dentist with a knee on my chair and an elbow in my chest trying to yank and twist a wisdom tooth out with nothing to calm me but a few shots of local anesthetic (which I go through rather quickly). When she finally got the damn thing out, I got to see why it took so long -- the damn roots on it were both curved around like hooks into my jaw.

So I'm going to be lying around for the next week doing absolutely nothing productive, chilled out on vicoden and ibuprophen. Yay.

[Sinister]

My heart goes out to you, but at least like this, if you're careful you won't hurt yourself any other way for a while. Don't take up tap-dancing or jogging in the near future.

I've broken bones five times in my life. Two times it was the same bone in my right arm at the same place(freak coincidence) and one of those was a transverse fracture. Once it was a collarbone with a rib facture, due to a very nice round house kick to the upper chest by a talented man I was sparring with. And lastly, the only incapacitating fracture I had was a chipped and bruised spine from landing on my backside from a 18 foot fall. That one left me unable to walk and in pain for the better part of a month.

As a leg it won't be too bad for you, you can still walk, after a fashion. Just don't think that because you can kind of walk, that you should. Keep up with the tylenol, and if you're lucky, the pain-killers and take it easy. Have a laid back winter with plenty of comfort food and warm drinks.

Best holiday wishes,
-Sin

[Meier Link]

I have no experiences breaking a bone that required casting but I do have knowledge of what not to do in concerns to the itching.

As bad as you don't want to hear it; DO NOT SCRATCH UNDER THE CAST. This goes double if they had to put pins into your leg.

Some people use wire hangers and what not to reach up under the cast to scratch. This is unadvised even if they did not have to pin your leg. There is a chance you could cut yourself while doing so.

Most of the time a small cut is nothing to worry about but at the same time with you being in a cast, unable to wash that area properly, the chance for infection is greatly increased. In the instance where they did pin it you take the chance of dislodging the pin and have to go back and have it corrected.

This advice comes directly from a nurse (not me, my mother) and also from experience of friends with casts.

Sorry to hear about your injury and I hope you get well soon.

[jcsimpson]

Get a pair of binoculars and spy on your neighbors.

[GypsyElder]

Awww that sucks Talluluh, I hope you manage :s

I've never broken a bone, so I don't know what it's like to hobble myself around on crutches or push myself around in a wheelchair.

For some reason broken bones became a trend in highschool, everyone suddenly had cast that needed signing lol.

The only good that can come from it is having an excuse to be lazy