Walking on Chopsticks

There’s a fancy Japanese restaurant in a nearby town that I went to a few times back in the 80’s and maybe early nineties. It’s one of those places where they only set out chopsticks for the patrons. They don’t even have Western eating utensils available for guests. The food was ridiculously good, but I never got to eat more than a mouthful or two because I could not use chopsticks. There’s a certain eye/finger coordination that is simply missing from my motor cortex. The last time I went there to eat (under protest) I smuggled my own fork in. The wait staff saw this and came over with two chopsticks tied together with a rubber band for me to use instead. The restaurant crew, my companions of that evening and other patrons of the restaurant thought it was hilarious. I never went back.

I hadn’t thought about that for over a decade. The only reason it came to mind is that a week ago I broke my distal right fibula (the smaller bone in your calf, broken right above the ankle). Because of this, I have had occasion to learn that crutches are simply glorified chopsticks on steroids with rubber tips at the bottom. Staying true to the skill sets I was born with, I am nearly incapable of operating them.

My right foot is totally non-weight-bearing at the moment, so walking with crutches is essentially an exercise in learning to ambulate as a tripod, with only one leg out of three capable of doing any of the real work. Swing the crutches forward with the tops pushing into your ribs (NOT armpits) while standing on your good leg. Push forward with your good leg, doing a mini-pole vault that brings your good foot as equal to the bottom of the crutches as your acrobatic skills allow. Repeat. After about six cycles of this, I will have moved about three feet.

Going through doors is a particular challenge. To be stable, the crutches need to be set at angles to either side of your body. When you get to a doorway the angle you can hold the crutches at becomes quite acute, and stability is compromised. Fortunately the doorframe will hold the wounded upright if she sways to the left of the right. Swaying to the front or back is not advised.

Amazingly, this is not my first stint with crutches, although it is the first time the offending leg has been forbidden to take any weight. If I could employ my right foot just a teeny-tiny bit I know I’d be fine. But two giant chopsticks are insufficient to guarantee that another unfortunate tumble will not befall me. For that reason I fell back to the walker that I had from after the transplant. That ups the points of contact with the ground from three (all of which work independently of the other) to five (four of which have to coordinate with each other because they are attached together).

Ironically (at least in my eyes) my right foot is in a so-called “walking boot”. Why it’s a walking boot when I’m not allowed to walk on it makes the whole set up a kind of an oxymoron. With luck, the walking boot will live up to its name in another week or so. Meanwhile it’s more of a lead-weight-that-wraps-securely-around-my-right-foot-and-makes-it-hard-to-hold-the-leg-off-the-floor-while-attempting-to-move boot.

First up is a nice picture of the walking boot. Next up is a nice picture of what it contains.



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4 Comments

  1. Ow ow ow! So swollen and painful looking! I’m so sorry – but trust you to make an entertaining (for others) story out of it.

    I hope it heals well and as soon as humanly possible.

  2. Oh, dear! I’m SO sorry! I have to agree, crutches are MUCH harder as we get older. When I broke my ankle almost 20 years ago now, I wasn’t even 40 yet, and crutches were still possible, if not extremely difficult. If I were to injure a leg, foot or ankle now I know I’d need my grandmother’s walker. I was going to suggest a walker before I got to the part about you using one. Now I’m going to suggest something else: a knee walker. I’ve had friends who have used them and found them very helpful. I don’t think it would work for me because my knees/neuropathy don’t allow me to kneel. It just hurts too much. But it could work better for you than the walker, just because it’s faster. I just looked them up on Amazon. Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=knee+scooter&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=78340258386820&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2yckzmlz04_e

    (I suppose you’d have to copy/paste to see what I’m going on about.)

    Best wishes, and I hope you recover as quickly as possible!

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