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liveaboard with broken leg


Mandy

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I was pulling my boat onto its mooring by the centre rope when I slipped and snapped 2 bones in my leg. At present whilst I can't put any weight on it at all, I'm staying with shore based friends. I was interested to hear from anyone else who has coped with this sort of injury whilst on the boat - any tips on how to cope - apart from wearing my friends out?

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I was pulling my boat onto its mooring by the centre rope when I slipped and snapped 2 bones in my leg. At present whilst I can't put any weight on it at all, I'm staying with shore based friends. I was interested to hear from anyone else who has coped with this sort of injury whilst on the boat - any tips on how to cope - apart from wearing my friends out?

Ouch! Hubby broke his ankle and we continued boating. Good luck

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I was pulling my boat onto its mooring by the centre rope when I slipped and snapped 2 bones in my leg. At present whilst I can't put any weight on it at all, I'm staying with shore based friends. I was interested to hear from anyone else who has coped with this sort of injury whilst on the boat - any tips on how to cope - apart from wearing my friends out?

 

Can't give you any advice but can sympathise, it sounds really painful, I hope your leg soon mends.

 

 

Ann

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Ouch.

 

I can't think of any particular precautions - clearly the boat will rock a bit more than a land based floor but you're well used to that I guess... one advantage of a boat though is that everything is closer to hand so you won't have to move so far doing your day to day stuff, and there are considerably fewer stairs to manoevuer worry about

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I was discharged from hospital 2 days after open heart surgery. I went to the boat. Obviously cruising is a bit of a problem, but just being on the boat is no problem. No stairs. Easier than a normal house.

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Poor you! I have been boating twice with broken ankles. The fisrt time, I was not allowed to put any weight on my plaster and it is amazing how you adapt to moving through the boat sideways - not room for me and crutches to walk the normal way. I went up and down stairs on my rear end and when I was steering , if my good leg got sore with taking all my weght, I rested my arms on the side of the hatch and swung there for a wee while. Needless to say, this was in locks where I didn't need to control the tiller at the same time :-) Getting on and off the boat was tricky and we actually borrowed a wheel chair form the Red Cross (and thanks to Alan (of Albert) for transporting it to and from the boat for us) which was useful when we found a bit of flat, even towpath.

The second time, i was allowed to put a little weight on the plaster and this made life much easier.

I do hope that your break is of the sort which allows you to use that leg a little.

I found that things took much longer and I spent time working out how to do things before tackling them.

 

Good luck!

 

haggis

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I was pulling my boat onto its mooring by the centre rope when I slipped and snapped 2 bones in my leg. At present whilst I can't put any weight on it at all, I'm staying with shore based friends. I was interested to hear from anyone else who has coped with this sort of injury whilst on the boat - any tips on how to cope - apart from wearing my friends out?

 

Nearly 20 years ago I broke one ankle and seriously bruised the other 3 days into a 3 week hire boat trip. After the obligatory visit to A&E we continued the trip. I spent the time steering, being able to take the weight off my feet by sitting on or leaning against the rail around the cruiser stern, while Jacqui got fit doing all the locks.

 

After a few days I could hobble around OK on crutches for short walks (to the pub).

 

We had to stop off half way through the trip to get the plaster refurbished as me spending most of the time outdoors in rather damp weather had led to it starting to fall apart.

 

But we managed.

 

David

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Poor you! I have been boating twice with broken ankles. The fisrt time, I was not allowed to put any weight on my plaster and it is amazing how you adapt to moving through the boat sideways - not room for me and crutches to walk the normal way. I went up and down stairs on my rear end and when I was steering , if my good leg got sore with taking all my weght, I rested my arms on the side of the hatch and swung there for a wee while. Needless to say, this was in locks where I didn't need to control the tiller at the same time :-) Getting on and off the boat was tricky and we actually borrowed a wheel chair form the Red Cross (and thanks to Alan (of Albert) for transporting it to and from the boat for us) which was useful when we found a bit of flat, even towpath.

The second time, i was allowed to put a little weight on the plaster and this made life much easier.

I do hope that your break is of the sort which allows you to use that leg a little.

I found that things took much longer and I spent time working out how to do things before tackling them.

 

Good luck!

 

haggis

That's really useful thanks. I'm on a non weight bearing cast till Tuesday week, then it should be easier. It's getting in and out of the cratch that I'm most worried about and getting down my steps into the cabin as there is nothing to hold on to. I can go down on my bum but then how do I get up again! :o

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That's really useful thanks. I'm on a non weight bearing cast till Tuesday week, then it should be easier. It's getting in and out of the cratch that I'm most worried about and getting down my steps into the cabin as there is nothing to hold on to. I can go down on my bum but then how do I get up again! :o

 

Roll over on to your knees and using a piece of sturdy (preferably fixed) piece of furniture and the leg you can weight bear on haul/stand your self up.

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That's really useful thanks. I'm on a non weight bearing cast till Tuesday week, then it should be easier. It's getting in and out of the cratch that I'm most worried about and getting down my steps into the cabin as there is nothing to hold on to. I can go down on my bum but then how do I get up again! :o

 

As Martin said, you can roll over onto your knees. Another method is to get up and down in stages. For example, to get myself into position to come down stairs in our house, I positioned some furniture at the top of the stairs (but in a position so that if I missed, i didn't come tumbling down). I had a chair which I could sit on then I slid sideways onto a stool then sideways again onto the floor. Something I found really useful was to have poly bags hung form my crutches so that i could carry things around. I also positioned a chair in the galley so that when I made a cup of coffee, i could sit and drink it. Not easy to carry a cup when you are using crutches!

If your hands get sore using the crutches, cheap cycling gloves are very useful. You can use them later for working locks!

The fisrt time I broke an ankle, I was handed a pair of crutches and left to make my own way out of the hospital. No tips on how to use them. However, the second time I broke an ankle (different leg) , I ended up in a different hospital and the physio spent time with me till he was sure i could use the crutches to not only walk along a corridor but go up and down stairs with them.

 

Just take it easy and work out what you are going to do before you set off and you will be fine. Good chance to catch up on your reading:-)

 

haggis

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As Martin said, you can roll over onto your knees. Another method is to get up and down in stages. For example, to get myself into position to come down stairs in our house, I positioned some furniture at the top of the stairs (but in a position so that if I missed, i didn't come tumbling down). I had a chair which I could sit on then I slid sideways onto a stool then sideways again onto the floor. Something I found really useful was to have poly bags hung form my crutches so that i could carry things around. I also positioned a chair in the galley so that when I made a cup of coffee, i could sit and drink it. Not easy to carry a cup when you are using crutches!

If your hands get sore using the crutches, cheap cycling gloves are very useful. You can use them later for working locks!

The fisrt time I broke an ankle, I was handed a pair of crutches and left to make my own way out of the hospital. No tips on how to use them. However, the second time I broke an ankle (different leg) , I ended up in a different hospital and the physio spent time with me till he was sure i could use the crutches to not only walk along a corridor but go up and down stairs with them.

 

Just take it easy and work out what you are going to do before you set off and you will be fine. Good chance to catch up on your reading:-)

 

haggis

 

A caravan step can be useful too.

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Actually that is a good suggestion, I was going to say a set of library steps.

 

I'm drawing on a previous life as a District Nurse in the 80's when we often had to improvise solutions for patients who had limited mobility, it was before the days of well stocked home loan equipment stores like we have now -

 

Our caravan step was occasionally pressed into service.... ;)

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