Living Car Free - more injuries...

Well, Roody's not the only one down for the count. I had a diversion fall on some railroad tracks today. My bike is fine, my left knee not so much. Nothing is broken, but there was a lot of internal bleeding. No bruising yet, but it should be visible tomorrow. So I'm on the couch, with the knee elevated and I'm icing it in spurts. It would be the good knee of course. So right now I have about half a leg, since the right side has more severe arthritis and the weather is not making it happy. (on the up side, the right one is my dominant leg, so it is rather stronger)

I'm really glad my doctor's office is across the street. I'm also really glad that I just bagged 25lbs of rice on Monday... we were low, and without rice we'd get pretty hungry pretty quick.

Now I get to learn about car-free and disabled. Yay?

Gosh, I didn't mean to start a streak. I hope your 1st aid works. I'm no doctor, but it sounds like you're doing the right things.

Feel better soon!

Get well soon, Torrilin!

Gosh, I didn't mean to start a streak. I hope your 1st aid works. I'm no doctor, but it sounds like you're doing the right things.

Feel better soon!

Hope so. If there isn't reasonable improvement by tomorrow, I'll see a doctor :). It was a pretty hard fall, and while I'm very sure no bones are broken, other stuff is still possible.

Thanks for all the good wishes :)

Hope you have a quick recovery.

Meanwhile, be careful around the house. A regular patron came into the library a couple of weeks ago with a broken wrist. I asked how he'd done it. He has a prosthetic leg. His story began, "Well I didn't have my leg on and I was hopping around the house..."

So please, don't hop around the house. :rolleyes:

Best wishes for speedy recovery.

Railroad tracks can be a bear. Get to a Doc, and get better soon. In the meantime, I assume you'll make full use of a bus pass, or maybe find a car (gasp!) to borrow... or get a trailer for the husband's bike. (Rice gets old pretty fast.)

Well you could look on the brighter side -- there wasn't a train bearing down on you... was there???

As I said for Roody:

Darn it! Heal up quickly.

Get well soon.

I prefer to use beans with rice. Pinto beans are the best for my blood type according to the book "Eat Right 4 Your Type". Chicken broth is good with rice too.

Ouch. Sorry to hear it. Hope it isn't too serious.
Rice can go with a lot of things, it's such a versatile food. We use it as a base for many a dinner.

No hopping without my crutches :D. I'm hurt enough, no need for more. And no, freight trains only run through Madison a few times a week, and my fall wasn't anywhere near a train time. Things seem to be progressing nicely. I've got a compression bandage on, and I've been keeping it elevated and iced. Bruising is starting to show up and wow is it impressive :o

Right now the major annoyance is I can't do much for myself. I can just manage my water bottle and crutches, but anything spillable is right out. I'm really glad I sprang for one of the Camelbak bottles. Pricey, but I can use it even now. Our rice cooker and crock pot are right out... I can't fill them with water, which makes it rather inconvenient. I never thought a spray attachment on a sink was a tool for the disabled before now.

I'll probably stay tucked up on the couch for a while. Guess I should work on my knitting.

Bruising is starting to show up and wow is it impressive :o

pics!

pics!

+1

And heal soon, ( but don't forget the pics! )

damn, sorry to hear!

hope you get back on the road soon.

I had a near-accident trying to manoeuver around some railway tracks recently. The darn things don't offer much in the way of traction and I needed to turn left...

Hope you start to heal up soon.

Around Thanksgiving, I was off crutches entirely. My left thigh had thinned down so it looked the way it did when I weighed 120lbs... which would be fine except these days I'm 170lbs and all the missing thickness was *muscle* (naturally, the fat stayed). I was feeling pretty down at that point, since I used all the missing muscle lots and not having it was painful. My knee was obviously thinner too. I still needed a brace nearly all the time. The really scary part was looking at my knees and realizing if the left knee took the same hit, there would be no muscle to take the brunt of the damage.

My partner brought home a great present: a free messenger bag. It is small, so I can't load it down the way I would with panniers or a backpack. And unlike a backpack, I could take the messenger bag on and off easily, without going off balance or needing the missing leg muscle. So I did errands with it, in little chunks. At first, even walking to the grocery store out back was hard. My right leg would do almost all the work and be basically ok, while on my left I'd feel exhausted. And of course, as soon as I was sort of mobile again, winter hit with a vengeance. We're up somewhere around 35-40 inches of snow for the winter already, and there were at least two ice storms in there.

Walking on ice with only one functional knee is... exciting. Can't recommend it. The only shoes I could get on were my snow boots, which are pretty good on ice. That was probably my biggest break, since another fall would not have helped.

Today, I'm feeling a lot better. I've started on some rehab exercises, and they're helping a lot. It feels strange to break a sweat off short bursts of toe touches and deep knee bends tho. And today I took my first long walk without a brace... 2 miles. I'm back to functional, if not normal. (doubt I can get my bike up stairs, but ice and slick tires do *not* go together... and they really really don't go with a knee injury)

If you can walk two miles without a brace, that's a good thing. If you can manage to keep getting some occasional leg exercise and maybe some rest days in between, you'll be feeling just great by Spring.

The only think I would caution is walking on ice. Maybe you should look into one of those yack tracks devices that you slip on over your shoes. Last winter I rigged up a pair by screwing some small wood screws into an old pair of boots. It certainly did help. Whatever the solution, it would beat a nasty fall.

Around Thanksgiving, I was off crutches entirely. My left thigh had thinned down so it looked the way it did when I weighed 120lbs... which would be fine except these days I'm 170lbs and all the missing thickness was *muscle* (naturally, the fat stayed). I was feeling pretty down at that point, since I used all the missing muscle lots and not having it was painful. My knee was obviously thinner too. I still needed a brace nearly all the time. The really scary part was looking at my knees and realizing if the left knee took the same hit, there would be no muscle to take the brunt of the damage.

My partner brought home a great present: a free messenger bag. It is small, so I can't load it down the way I would with panniers or a backpack. And unlike a backpack, I could take the messenger bag on and off easily, without going off balance or needing the missing leg muscle. So I did errands with it, in little chunks. At first, even walking to the grocery store out back was hard. My right leg would do almost all the work and be basically ok, while on my left I'd feel exhausted. And of course, as soon as I was sort of mobile again, winter hit with a vengeance. We're up somewhere around 35-40 inches of snow for the winter already, and there were at least two ice storms in there.

Walking on ice with only one functional knee is... exciting. Can't recommend it. The only shoes I could get on were my snow boots, which are pretty good on ice. That was probably my biggest break, since another fall would not have helped.

Today, I'm feeling a lot better. I've started on some rehab exercises, and they're helping a lot. It feels strange to break a sweat off short bursts of toe touches and deep knee bends tho. And today I took my first long walk without a brace... 2 miles. I'm back to functional, if not normal. (doubt I can get my bike up stairs, but ice and slick tires do *not* go together... and they really really don't go with a knee injury)

Any way you can go to Physical Therapy? That's been a BIG help for me. The exercises will work, so give them time. Get well soon!