Travelling with a broken leg. It was never going to be easy, but it was never going to stop us either. Having sustained a ridiculously complicated broken leg (fractured tibia plateau) while skiing in a particularly poor Australian ski season, I was told that it would be a minimum of 3 months of absolutely no weight bearing. Ergo, a wheelchair. This is the type of break that stops athletes careers permanently, and I am not an athlete, and I was told that it takes at least 2 years to get a reasonable recovery going.
Well this didn’t quite suit our plans at all. The break occurred at the end of July and were booked to fly to Europe at the beginning of October. So it was a matter of manipulating orders, sucking it up and making some adjustments.
pathetic
Getting through the airports was too easy on a wheelchair with a cyborg brace on. I am considering renting this out to people who don’t like queues. It was brilliant. All kudos to the airports involved.
We had considered the implications. How would I get around? Would I be more prone to deep vein thrombosis? What if I fell again? But we decided that as I am pretty tough and Gordon is super strong and supportive that we would manage, somehow. Plus we desperately wanted to go to the Netherlands and to Belgium. We decided to leave the wheelchair at the airport gates and defy doctors’ orders and see how I handled crutches.
Knowing about this problem we actually booked in advance knowing that we had some vital criteria. Centrality as per normal was even more imperative, and no steps were essential.
We stayed at Zandvoort first with friends for a few days, and this was easy as everything was on the one level and I was starting to get a handle on the crutches, which is a skill in itself.
We then booked a houseboat in Amsterdam that was moored in the delightful Jordaan district and close enough to tram routes to make it to the museum district etc. This worked out well, sort of.
Crutches and cobble stones streets and quite a few rainy days, are not exactly a match made in heaven. Walking the gang plank onto the boat was more a fear factor but getting Gordon to help me made it possible. You will all know that stairs are mandatory in any Dutch place and going to the toilet was out of the question as there was no way that I could negotiate the steep and narrow steps.
So what happened? I walked on 2 crutches and that was really hard, so I went to 1 crutch and Gordon’s arm and that was better. We used lifts in the museums and railway stations where we could. When the escalators broke at Amsterdam station and we had to get to the train in 4 minutes, I had no option but to climb the mongrels while Gordon dragged the suitcases up. Was I in pain? Absolutely. Did we get to see a lot of Amsterdam? Most definitely. But it all just took us a lot longer as I had to keep stopping for a break. With regards to the toilet issue, I possible have one of the strongest bladders in the world now! The houseboat worked out perfectly however, and was a marvelous and easy option regardless of the leg.
We then moved onto Ghent to a B&B, which had been selected again because there were no steps and everything was close at hand. But amazing as it was, there were 3 terracotta steps into the bathroom that I feared face planting into. I dreaded going there. It must have been such a delightful sight to see me go up on my butt to use the bathroom. Not.
Ghent also is a cobble stoned city that is truly delightful and truly painful on the leg. We did contemplate hiring a wheelchair back in Amsterdam but we decided that this would just shake every tooth out of my head. So again we went with the suck it up, you are in Europe approach. Rationalising our approach, we believed that this was like full on 24 hr physiotherapy. Was my leg getting better? Sure didn’t feel like it in Amsterdam or Ghent.
We then decided to go to Brussels and that was a hard day in a beautiful city. We caught the tour bus to explore and then took our time seeing some of the amazing squares. We sat down at many cafes and people watched – anything to get some relief.
Yes, I cried quite a number of times, because of pain and I think from frustration at feeling so dependent upon my husband.
bit of a hero i suppose
We then went to Maastricht, which again has cobble stoned streets and toilets upstairs, but for the first time in 3 months I was taking steps without the crutch. Not a lot, but enough to get me across the Vrijthof Square. So maybe the self prescribed “physio” is working.
Now we have returned home and I have not used a crutch in the last 2 days. Does it hurt? Not much really. I have a slight limp but that can be figured out I am sure. I did read somehwhere that walking backwards can really help get rid of a limp, so that is what I am trying.
So the moral to the story is: if you want something badly enough you just have to go for it. Marry someone incredible and suck up the pain. Did I take tramadol pain killers? Rarely. I have a problem where my body doesn’t like them. People were super courteous and always accommodating. So it is do able.
Have we had a good time? No. We had an absolutely brilliant time.
