The Top 10 Perks Of Breaking Your Leg

You just broke your leg. The next few months will seem very long, but the healing period has some serious perks.

10. All the Delicious Baked Goods

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If you catch a bad flu or other illness, your loved ones might bring you a meal to help you recover. But when you break a bone, especially a leg or two, it’s entirely different. Though you may be bedridden for what feels like forever, your friends and family will likely fortify you with an epic series of baked goods.

Healing requires lots of calories, so don’t worry that all those muffins might become a muffin top. Just don’t forget that protein, fruits, and veggies are important for healing, too.

9. Catching Up on TV

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Your leg will hurt something fierce, and you’ll be on powerful pain meds for a good while. Don’t expect to get any serious work done, but do look forward to catching up on TV and movies. Between Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, it’s easy to watch great shows and movie from the comfort of your bed, with your leg elevated on Pillow Mountain to reduce swelling.

8. Sitting Down to Shower

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Baths are out, since you can’t get your splint or cast wet. To shower, I recommend one of these waterproof protectors, and some sort of bath chair from your local medical shop. Stores in the International Districts tend to run cheaper, and can usually rent you a wheelchair or knee scooter, too.

After a few months you won’t even miss standing up to shower!

7. Showing off Your Favorite Underwear to Strangers

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If you’re unlucky like me, you broke the leg bone(s) so severely you needed surgery to stitch the pieces back together. Surgery might seem scary, but don’t fret: this is a golden opportunity to flaunt your most fabulous underwear, since the doctors and nurses are legally required to keep their mouths shut.

The more bows and ruffles, the better.

6. Showing Off Your X-Rays to Everyone

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For your friends following your adventures on social media, a picture is worth a thousand characters. Nothing tells the story of your broken bone quite like the X-Rays, so have fun displaying them to anyone that asks. Or anyone at all, really.

If you get a CAT scan before surgery, the tech will give you a CD of the images. A good nerd can use the images to 3-D print a sweet model of your breaks, which will win you many “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” whenever you venture out of the house.

5. Ignoring Your Email Completely

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No one expects you to get any work done until you’re off the heavy meds. Just turn on an automatic response and enjoy a little time away from responsibility.

4. Becoming a Master at Trash Ball

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Both before and after surgery—if you need it—moving will hurt. A lot.

You will not want to get up for absolutely anything more than you have to, but you will still generate trash, and that trash will still need to get in the trash can.

This is a great time to practice throwing your garbage into the can from a distance. After a few weeks, your aim will be much improved!

3. Using Your Crutches as a Sweet Arm Extension

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Elevator button? No problem.

Light switch? Done, from 3 feet away.

Sure, crutches might be the most exhausting way to travel ever recorded, but you will get a fantastic upper-body workout in the process.

2. Instant Camaraderie with Everyone that has Ever Broken a Bone

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No one moves through life without ever getting hurt, and people love to compare war stories.

Even if they’ve never broken a bone, most folks are quick to help the newly-crippled, if you ask. And sometimes even when you don't!

I had a sprained shoulder on top of my broken leg, and ordered a lot of delivery food the first few weeks. None of the delivery people ever batted an eye when I asked them to carry the food inside while I led the way awkwardly on my crutches. Once the food was settled, we always chatted for a bit about my accident, the healing time, the time they broke their wrist skateboarding, etc.

1. Developing Empathy for People with Disabilities

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You will experience a range of emotions while your leg heals. Frustration, as passersby stop to watch you struggle with stairs, but don’t offer any help. Joy, when you rent a wheelchair and feel the wind in your hair. Dawning horror as you realize the sidewalks are WAY rougher than they look, and you feel each and every bump in the pavement as your bone fragments jiggle painfully against each other.

Eventually, you accept that having a disability has huge implications for every aspect of your life: how long it takes you to get ready and reach destinations, whether you go places that might not offer disability accommodations, travel, work, and more. Everything, really. Once you re-learn to walk, you will never take walking for granted again, but you will still hold that hard-earned empathy for the differently abled.