People who know me know that I am a klutz. When I was younger, I broke my right arm in three places at the same time, and the very next year, on the anniversary of getting my cast put on my other arm, I broke my left arm. Besides a small injury on my leg once, I had never injured my ankle, until about a week ago. Now I am fully acquainted with the horrors of crutches and am here to inform you, dear reader, what you have to look forward to if you have not injured your leg. You never know, you might someday need crutches!
1. Crutches have height adjustments.
I never knew that crutches had height adjustments and thought one size fit all. WRONG! I put out an ad to get some free crutches (I'm a broke college student) and didn't think to specify sizes. So, image my surprise when the kind soul who lent me his crutches turned out to be over 6 foot, with the consequence being that the lowest setting was for 5 foot 10 inches and I am 5 foot 5 inches on a good day.
2. Your armpits will hurt.
A lot. I would find myself sitting down, not because my good working leg was tired, but because I needed to give my arms a break.
3. Actually, everything will bruise and hurt.
That area under your armpits? Bruised on the bottom of your foot. Your good leg? Blistered. Your bad leg? Blistered on the bottom of your foot as well, plus whatever else has already happened to it. I had a ton of places bruise and blister that I didn't even know I had, let alone know that it could blister. Hope you were given good pain medicine.
4. It will take you forever to get somewhere.
The first couple of nights took me close to twenty minutes to get up, go to the bathroom, use it, and get back and it didn't matter whether or not I was at my home, in the dorm, or on the campus. I often left for my class over an hour early (in some cases over two, if I was coming from my dorm) and if I had any time left I would nap in public places because the journey took everything out of me.
5. You will not get the same mercy you saw kids with crutches receiving in high school...
You don't get to leave early in order to make it to your next class, they don't assign an aid to help you get around, and unless the assignment was due the day you were injured, you receive no extension dates despite taking more time out of studying to get around.
6. ...but students who see you and have time to spare will most likely be more than willing to help out.
No matter where I went, I found several students who willingly stopped what they were doing to help me out without me asking, whether I was on one crutch or two. Heck, I'm off crutches now but people still see my leg bandaged and my slight limp and they still stop and ask if I'm alright.
7. But overall, you will be alright.
I mean, if I can get through being injured two weeks away from finals, you can deal with it as well. Your injury isn't forever and it will be over sooner than you think. Just keep your chin up and keep walking! (Or hopping, either way, you'll do it).
