Top 42 Things I have Learned So Far From Breaking My Leg

1. Broken Legs hurt.  A lot.
2. A broken parent must remain calm in an emergency, so as not to incite hysteria in her offspring.
3. That my mother was right.  There is nothing like the sound of hearing your own bone break.
4. When you break your leg, you still have to be the MOM, and deal with the emotional fallout.
5. How to walk on "crotches" as my 4yo pronounces it.
6. What the term "non weight bearing" means.
7. That no drug store is open in the Outer Banks past 8pm.
8. The amount of pain I can handle, that is not female or baby related.
9. Good pain medicine makes me nauseous.
10. Anti-nausea pills are approx 6 bucks apiece, and for large quantities, must be pre-approved by my insurance.
11. Seriously? I got an obnoxious amount of pain pills, but the nausea pills are the ones that need pre-approved?
12. Discovering immediately how to booty scoot up the stairs backwards(closely resembling a backwards crab walk).
13. Remembering the long ago forgotten childhood skill of "bumping" down the stairs on your booty(while a second party elevates injured leg).
14. How to push myself in a wheelchair.
15. How to not forget to set the brakes on your wheelchair.
16. How to navigate from wheelchair to crutches to bathroom, all the while squeezing like crazy, because you can no longer run when you really have to pee, and hoping and praying you make it in time.  Then when you make it, you have to balance your crutches so they do not fall over out of your reach, tug down your britches, elevate your leg/brace, all while balancing precariously on your one good leg, while you balance on the walls or sink and lower yourself onto the said bathroom device.
17. How in all the madness of #11, not to get your britches stuck in your leg brace, or caught on the toilet seat.  Like wise, when standing up, not flipping the toilet seat up with you, because your pants/panties are stuck on or under it, while trying to stand on one foot, lift yourself off the pottie, etc.
18. How to not let the brace fall down your leg into the floor, while attempting #s 11 and 12.
19. That it is much safer to navigate or be navigated through any doorway or bump backwards, so as not to have a heart attack at the moment when the wheelchair stops and pitches forward.  That is if you don't actually get dumped out.
20. The patience and absolute fearful trust relationship that you must have with anyone that pushes you in a wheelchair.
21. The art of scoot pulling your self across the floor, to a couch or chair, and pulling yourself up into the chair with your arms and one good leg.
22. How not to take a painful backwards Lipton Ice Tea Plunge fall, from losing your balance on the crutches. (Note to crutch users; pissed off and in a hurry don't work well with crutches!)
23. How to turn tight corners, work both wheels at once, and spin in circles in a wheelchair. (Admit it, if you've ever been confined to or had to use a wheelchair, you've tried it too!)
24. Crutches become your hands and feet. (You need to reach that tennis shoe? No problem, let me stick my crutch in it or through the loop and grab it for you!  That door needs closed? Let me use the top of my crutch here and lasso it to pull it shut for you.)
25. Crutches and stairs are a combo that I will not ever willingly try. (example...to get up the one steep step into my house, I hopped out of the truck on my one good foot, hop, hop, hop, hop/turn around, land in wheelchair.  I than was wheeled down our long sidewalk to the step up to the four foot long porch, leading into our house.  We pulled the wheelchair up to the step, locked the brakes, I put good foot up on the step, and my husband and father cross grip pulled me up to standing.  I then crutched it into the house. To go back out to the doctor the following day, I was wheeled out to the edge of the porch step. locked the brakes, put my foot down on the ground, slid out of the seat, and stood up with my crutches.  My dad then brought the wheelchair down from the porch, sat me in it, and wheeled me to the truck.) Navigating stairs with crutches scare me.
26. That you will get a mental workout from having to figure out how to best get yourself, your hardware, and your broken leg into a car or truck, without A-bending the leg, B-smacking it on the side of the car because you over or under shot the angle, and see how best to accommodate your leg for propping up, so as not to swell on all day return car trips from vacation! 
27. Shower seats never fit in regular size bathtubs facing forward.  
28. How to take a sideways shower, while figuring out how to not move the leg that your actually not suppose to have out of the brace for a shower, but you cannot stand to be dirty, so your doing it anyway, while you are desperately trying to bring your other leg up into a squat position on the edge of the tub, so that you can wash your girl bits. Yup exposed to the world is how.(Sorry for the disturbing mental image that is flashing through your mind right now!)
29. Handicap hotel room shower accommodations are the bomb!
30. After 3 days, you will do anything for a shower!
31. Museums are the perfect thing to do when you break your leg!
32. To do dishes, you stand on your one available leg, speed wash all the dishes you can until your leg starts to hurt, and feels like it's going to give out, then push through a few more dishes, come on girl you can do it, then collapse back into the wheelchair to rest for a few minutes, and prop your injured leg up. Repeat. Collapse. Prop. Repeat. Collapse. Prop.(until dishes are done).
33. Your everything north of the broken leg will ache! 
34. Your other leg will get buff, and you will wear one half of your new tennis shoes out by the time your leg heals.
35. The entire foot and leg will swell bigger than you ever thought possible. Yes your toes can turn blue!
36. If ever there was a time you needed your spouses phone to work and be charged, it will not be the one time you actually need them!
37. You can convalesce anywhere! Even at the beach!
38. Leg braces are a pain in the patootie!
39. Ice actually feels good on a swollen leg that is broken! Who would have thought?
40. The outpouring of love and help that is given and offered is overwhelming!
41. I am reminded again, how much I love my husband, "In sickness and in health..."
42. That my 4yo is an awesome and willing 'mommy's little helper'.