Life as a handicapped person with a full leg cast is interesting and inconvenient to say the least. First of all, the crutches are an all new skill. I use the crutches exclusively at home but for those who have visited chez moi, you know my mansion is fairly compact. After all, I can sit on the toilet and wash my hands at the same time if I wanted. The biggest inconvenience about crutches is that you always have your hands full. Imagine not even being able to carry a glass of water from one spot to the next. I’ve had to retire my new birthday-gift-to-myself plum purse for the time being and switch to a backpack because I can carry it hands free. What a sad day that function must take precedence over fashion : (
After learning how to navigate on crutches for a week, I was ready for a new challenge. Since I broke my left leg and my car is an automatic, I am fortunate enough to still drive. Handicapped parking is not all it’s cracked up to be. On several occasions, I’ve not been able to find a single handicapped spot because they were all full. As for getting in and out, I push my power seats to the far back setting, sit down, slowly bring my straight leg around and squeeze into the the seat. Then I hit my power seats back to my setting and scoot back up. This is a very delicate operation and should not be done in haste. Rushed movements result in the toes or leg getting caught and banged around on the door or in the car. As this sends excruciating pain waves through my leg, watching me get in and out of the car is like watching a movie in slow motion. I’ve wondered with such a narrow clearance to get in and out of the car, how does someone over the vertically challenged height of 5’ 3” manage such a feat?
After hobbling around on crutches for a few weeks, I determined that they are good for short distances and tight spaces but beyond that, it’s wheelchair time. The wheelchair, although wonderful in theory, is extremely difficult to deal with alone. Since I couldn’t enjoy these beautiful November days on two wheels, the next best thing was four wheels but not a cage – a wheelchair! So I drove myself to the local greenway. Then I quickly realized that pulling a wheelchair in and out of the trunk of my sedan ranked about the same difficulty as picking up a motorcycle when you have a broken leg. It took me twenty minutes to get it out of my car and after that, I was tipped out of the wheelchair twice because of uneven terrain. Let’s say falling out of the wheelchair with your leg fully extended and in a cast in not the most pleasant experience.
After slowly pushing myself along the greenway and having to talk to every dog walker along the way, I got to reverse the process. Putting it back was worse than getting it out. Imagine not being able to use your legs and even better having to balance on just one leg while picking up something very heavy from the ground. (For the ambitious, as an exercise, try picking up a case of water sitting on the ground while standing on one leg and keeping the other one perfectly straight!) Unfortunately, I did not get the ultra light weight carbon fiber wheelchair. Instead, I got the covered-by-my-insurance super heavy model that was filthy and covered in pet hair when I picked it up. After wrestling with it for a while, I got the wheelchair in the trunk. Then I took a five minute breather and sat in the trunk of my car resting and charging up. Finally, a couple riding bicycles stopped by and helped me turn the wheelchair around so that my trunk would close. Whew! I exerted more energy getting the wheelchair in and out then I did rolling in the actual wheelchair!
For life as a handicapped person, here are the key points to take away:
* sometimes you have to sacrifice function over fashion unless you have a full time butler to carry your purse and at that point, it probably won’t match the butler’s outfit anyhow
* crutches stink but they definitely serve the purpose but not a single bit more than that
* although it may seem nice to sit and roll in a wheelchair all day, the lack of freedom and hassle of non wheelchair friendly places is not worth it
* the RED handicapped tag means this is temporary so I am very grateful that although this is an inconvenience, my time on crutches and in a wheelchair is limited. Those who have a BLUE tag are truly inspirational and amazing!
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