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cane better than crutches
2013-Mar-30, Saturday 09:26 amIt's been a week since my injury. I'm still hobbling around.
I started my recovery last Saturday with crutches. I can cover a lot of ground quickly with crutches, but their main downside is that I cannot carry anything else. I was using my backpacking water container to sling the strap around my neck and carry drinking water while I traveled inside the house with crutches. For crutches to be really useful, somebody needs to invent a kind of baby carry harness modified to hold generic items on the chest instead of an infant.
Luckily, a roommate had a spare cane available, so I've been using it ever since. I can carry water or food in my right hand while using a cane in my left hand. A cane makes for slower travel, but I am much more maneuverable indoors with a cane. I can travel from point A to point B even without a cane, but using a cane ensures that I will move without continuously injuring my leg muscle.
The good news is that my injury is only a muscle tear, not damage to tendon or ligament. That difference should improve my healing time. It's also good that it happened after the packed ice melted from sidewalks everywhere, so I have fewer hazards to overcome outdoors. We still have lots of snow in the yard, but the weather here is warming up to the point that we've even had a few nights above freezing. I'm feeling even more cooped up than before.
What's weird about this injury, however, is that the muscle twitches resumed with a vengeance. Previously, twitches would appear in a single position and then continue in that spot persistently for a long time. This time, though, twitches happen all over my lower left leg, jumping position from one moment to the next. That short-term variety has never happened before. I can't imagine why it's connected to this muscle tear.
I have another doctor's appointment in a week. We'll see how the recovery is progressing then.
I started my recovery last Saturday with crutches. I can cover a lot of ground quickly with crutches, but their main downside is that I cannot carry anything else. I was using my backpacking water container to sling the strap around my neck and carry drinking water while I traveled inside the house with crutches. For crutches to be really useful, somebody needs to invent a kind of baby carry harness modified to hold generic items on the chest instead of an infant.
Luckily, a roommate had a spare cane available, so I've been using it ever since. I can carry water or food in my right hand while using a cane in my left hand. A cane makes for slower travel, but I am much more maneuverable indoors with a cane. I can travel from point A to point B even without a cane, but using a cane ensures that I will move without continuously injuring my leg muscle.
The good news is that my injury is only a muscle tear, not damage to tendon or ligament. That difference should improve my healing time. It's also good that it happened after the packed ice melted from sidewalks everywhere, so I have fewer hazards to overcome outdoors. We still have lots of snow in the yard, but the weather here is warming up to the point that we've even had a few nights above freezing. I'm feeling even more cooped up than before.
What's weird about this injury, however, is that the muscle twitches resumed with a vengeance. Previously, twitches would appear in a single position and then continue in that spot persistently for a long time. This time, though, twitches happen all over my lower left leg, jumping position from one moment to the next. That short-term variety has never happened before. I can't imagine why it's connected to this muscle tear.
I have another doctor's appointment in a week. We'll see how the recovery is progressing then.