Getting Around in a Splint

So for the next 3 weeks I split my time between bed, sofa and laps of the living room to keep me moving. Walking on the crutches was slow and hard work. But it was the getting up and down that I found difficult as I was unable to get my leg from bed/sofa to floor and vice-versa unaided. I think this was partly due to the weight of the splint causing pressure and pain on my knee, partly due to the increasingly useless quad muscles in my bad leg, and partly due to the injury itself as a straight leg lift is virtually impossible with a fractured patella. I need someone to lift my leg whilst I turn myself around and then place it to the floor for me. I think someone needs to invent a device that will help with this, how people who live alone would manage I'll never know!

To make things worse, this was Christmas time! No shopping, no dining out, no cinema, no pantomime! I did manage to get out on Boxing Day though, after a family effort to get me into our car. This involves putting the front seat flat, lowering myself down onto the seat, having someone lift my leg from the floor whilst I slide my bum up the back of the seat far enough to be able to turn my leg into the car and then lower it down into the footwell. Quickly place a pillow under my leg to support it, raise the seat again and off to go! .... Yes, driving is a long way away yet!

Moshi Monsters checking out my splint

Pamper time!
Getting a foot massage

Out and about on Boxing Day
(that's a wafer sweet by the way, not my knee cap poking out of the splint)