Whatever the injury, crutches are rough. They stop you from doing so much. They become your best friends throughout the time that you have them. There are days that aren’t too bad and days that you want to throw them out the window. Here are a few things that happen when you are stuck on crutches in college.
1. Waiting for security to pick you up is an endless battle
So since you’re on crutches and can’t really get around too well, you tend to call security for a medical escort anywhere you need to go. Too bad they aren’t your personal ride and you have to wait for them for anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes. You get really creative about places to sit and lean while you wait because standing that long isn’t okay either.
2. You can forget about carrying anything
Oh, you wanted to get some lunch? Make sure you have a friend go with you because otherwise you will be eating in line. Your hands are now taking over the function of your legs so you can’t carry anything on your own. You feel bad, but your friends become your pack mules and they have to carry everything for you.
3. Walks on nice, warm days? Nope!
As long as the walk is from your bed to the door and back you should be good. Otherwise, kiss nice walks goodbye for a while. Your arms just can’t take that much work in one day and you get tired within ten feet of crutching. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to walk again soon!
4. Bruising is the worst
You have bruises not only from your injury but also from your crutches. Your crutches leave your hands and sides all marked up. You begin finding all sorts of new ways to add padding to your crutches. There are many creative ideas, mine being foam padding duct taped onto my crutches.
5. What even are doors?
It’s difficult to open heavy campus doors in general. Doing it while trying to speed through on crutches before the door has a chance to shut on you is even worse. You tend to know which doors stay open for how long so that you know just how long you have to rush through them. Everything is muscle memory at this point.
6. Shirts will never stay where they should
Your shirt will ride up. No way to stop it from happening. Even if you tuck it in so you look terrible you will still end up having to stop and pull it down because the world doesn’t need to see everything. Mostly you stick with wearing big baggy sweatshirts because they tend to stay down at least a little bit better than other jackets and t-shirts.
7. Yeah, you can move my crutches all the way across the room…
Your professors are really concerned about people tripping over your crutches so they often move them to a wall so nobody can trip and fall. Too bad now you can’t move unless you ask someone to get your crutches and call attention to yourself and make the rest of class turn their heads. As if you needed more attention than the attention you get for being on four legs.
8. You hop around when you just can’t anymore.
There are times when you just give up on crutches for the time being and hop around on your good leg. I do this in my room fairly often. It’s just a lot of work and the crutches take a lot of space in a tiny dorm room. This is probably not what your doctor would want to hear but as far as you see it, your leg doesn’t have any weight on it so you’re good! However, you might as well be a rabbit.
9. Pockets are your best friends.
You make sure that whatever outfit you wear, it has pockets. Pockets are your only chance to even partially have some independence. You find yourself shoving lots of stuff in your pockets because you actually can carry it if it’s in your pocket.
10. Stairs ... nope!
Stairs are the devil's creation. You can do them, as long as you’re okay with taking 20 minutes to get to where you’re going. Any building that doesn’t have an elevator, you stick to the first floor. Stairs are just a lot of effort and time that can be used elsewhere.
11. Those arm muscles, though!
Even though there are a lot of problems with using crutches around a college campus, you find your arm muscles growing every day. Who says you can’t work out while on crutches? You will be ready for your next season as soon as possible!
