Mo broke his foot, still needs to exercise.....

Oh no, boomerang!
Poor Mo!

Let me think for a bit to see what activity ideas I can come up with.

Sure hope Mo likes to swim. Forget about the flippers, though.

If I think of something else, even off the wall, I'll get back to you

Oops! I can't recommend swimming with a cast. Same as concrete overshoes, it would get itchy when wet.

Table tennis, fencing, horse back riding, croquet, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, dragon boat racing - he'll need a big garbage bag to cover the cast, wheelchair basketball.

Sorry to hear about this, boomer.

I can think of some activities to keep him busy, but not the kind that would give him exercise. Sorry.

(I thought of kite flying and model building.)

There are exercise bikes which are powered by your arms as well as feet. You can just hire them here.....but his feet would still need to be on the pedals and would go round and round with them, even when the bike was running from arm power.

Edit...I see on the net things with just pedals, no bike as such, which can be used for arms or legs.

Also wondering if local playgrounds would have swings that he can really work up....use whole body muscles to make it swing, also use arm muscles for holding on.....might also have monkey bars he can swing from while hanging on with his arms? They can both get you tired, and at least he's MOVING.

We... tennis and fencing require a lot more mobility than Mo can probably manage on a broken foot, but the other suggestions might work.

Thanks, all!

Water anything is out at this point (apparently the stuff they make the splint out of will rot your skin if it gets at all wet) but maybe it won't be so touchy when he gets the regular cast. We'll have to see the orthopedist next week but for now we have explicit instructions to avoid water. He broke it in a weird place so right now we don't even know what kind of cast he'll end up with.

The playground is our best bet, I think, since it will be easier on our wallets. I'll look around to see if I can rent some upper body gym equipment but being outside in the sunshine is what summer is all about.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

i wonder if anyone rents something like this

http://www.examiner.com/article/hand-powered-bicycles

cool little article on hand powered bikes

That's pretty cool! There is a huge system of biking trails very near our house so something like that could be fun!

Wait til you talk to the orthopedist before you buy/rent anything. Mo's limitations/options could change dramatically depending on what kind of cast he'll be in longer term and what the ortho recommends.

Ask for a referral to a sports physiotherapist - they should have good options to discuss.

If you were in a community like Toronto, I'd tell you to call Variety Village. They have a lot of programs or people with mobility challenges. They'd put a kid like Mo into a chair and throw him into a pick-up wheelchair basketball game. He'd learn a lot - and his basketball skills would ramp up after the initial frustration of being the worst player on the court.

Why is camping off the books?

don't you have hospital gyms that allow out-patients?

Great advice, ehBeth, thanks! Neither Mr. B nor I have ever had a broken bone so this is all very new to us. I'll be sure to ask the orthopedist these things. Perhaps the hospital does have some programs and recommendations for keeping kids active under these circumstances.

Camping may still be an option but usually for us it involves the beach and hiking, which would be difficult (and dangerous?) on crutches. We do know a campground where you can rent horses so maybe a camping/horse riding experience would be good.

one example of your local resources - ask about a one-off referral to a recreation therapist


http://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/en/Hospitals/Locations/Portland/Orthopaedics/ChildLifeAndRecreationTherapy-Ortho.aspx

How about a one legged/knee scooter
http://www.KneeWalkerShop.com/?gclid=CKOr94nK1bACFQYKKgodSxrY2Q

The only ideas I've come up with so far will probably result in second trips to the emergency room. (Horseback riding, minibikes)

Hey, how about yoga?

I watched some beginner classes for fencing. It's not as demanding as one might think. There is a lot to learn before a kid is actually lunging and doing complicated footwork.
It's the first few weeks where mobility is the issue, once he's on the mend, trust me, the cast will be more like a big shoe than a painful impediment. Kids heal so quickly and even with the cast on, he'll be dancing around in no time.

Almost this exact thing happened to sozlet's BFF a couple of years ago. Just as summer break started, she broke her leg.

She had a special thing for her cast that allowed her to go in the pool. Something like this, though I can't swear to the brand.

http://www.waterproofcast.com/

If I remember right, she couldn't do that at first, but she could do it for much of the time she had a cast on. (It was a long time with cast/ crutches for her, I think 10 weeks?)

Also don't discount things that include just walking as opposed to running -- Kay (BFF) got a fair amount of exercise by just hobbling around on her crutches. It was a lot of work, which is both positive and negative. (Tiring, but she also is someone who needs a lot of exercise.)

She also had physical therapy, which was exercise -- weights etc. I don't know all of the details of that, I think it was through the hospital and was covered by insurance.

Some of it she did on-site, some things she was supposed to do at home.

She had a full-leg cast -- she couldn't move her knee at all. So that was really limiting. If Mo can move his knee, there should be more options available to him. I know a few grown-ups who messed up their feet lately, they were still quite mobile. Usually they had a cast and then a boot (more options with a boot).

I agree with ehBeth that you'll probably get a lot more info on this from the doc.

How is Mo doing? Kay found the whole thing really traumatic (there were some circumstances around it that made it extra-bad, though), her mom assumed she'd want friends around but for the first couple of weeks she'd only see sozlet.

Good luck to Mo + hope the recovery is smooth and quick...