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Walking with a cane is not as simple as picking it up and going on your way. It requires a period of adjustment to find your rhythm, learning to synchronize your muscles with the workings of metal and rubber. Yet, no one talks about this. So here are a few ways you shouldn’t use a cane. In most cases. There are always exceptions.
I should clarify that I am talking about the type of cane meant to support you while walking, not the white canes sometimes used by blind folks. I don’t have experience using those.
1. Hold it in your right hand to support your right leg, and vice versa.
Perhaps as a surprise to no one, Dr. House does not provide a good example of how to use a cane. In most cases, the cane should be in the hand *opposite* the injured/weaker/pained leg. Otherwise, you’re more likely to mess up your back. I will admit, there are still days when the cane goes in my right hand. Sometimes I need more support to not crumble. My back is strong enough to tolerate it.
After running out of my vital pain management medication my first semester at Macalester, I panic-messaged my person in the Center for Disability Resources, asking her if they had anything that might help me walk. I knew the pain was going to be unspeakable. Searing, roiling, angry. Hugs and Tylenol were not going to get me to class.
Unfortunately, the CDR had nothing. But they realized that perhaps they should, so they ordered a cane. Of course, that wouldn’t help me in the lapse of medicine.
I struggled through that small lapse, spending most of my time in bed. I was irritable, understandably so: my bones were not in the right place and they were making it my problem.
But when the cane arrived, I realized it would be helpful to have in moments like that. Since no one else had immediate need, the CDR let me borrow it. Thankfully, I had already learned the right hand for proper cane-holding. But the technique? That was lost on me.
2. Overthink your strides.
I’ve always had a very loose definition of the word borrow, and I still have that cane. Of course, when I decided to keep it, I bought a new one for the CDR so they would have it for future use.
My biggest issue when I started using it was that I was thinking too much about how to walk with it. I stumbled over myself, taking slow, clumsy steps. Something about syncing the metal with my foot didn’t make sense.
Turns out, I was trying too hard to make the cane and my foot hit the ground at the same time. When I started listening to my natural rhythm, I realized that the grippy rubber bottom should actually land a moment before my foot. Redistribute my weight to that before the right foot lands, so there’s less pain on the landing.
Ever since, I let the cane act as a third leg, following my intuition to guide my steps.
3. Don’t use it when you need it.
When I hit my first Minnesota winter, walking the distances I had to quickly became impossible. My bones had never known cold like this. They’ve been adjusting over the years, but that first winter was brutal. My joint barely wanted to bend.
But I waited until I physically could not walk on my own to pull out the cane. Countless hours of pain, slow steps, pacing myself, pausing. Classes spent in agony that could have been, at the very least, only mildly uncomfortable.
Shame is a difficult beast to tame.
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4. Tell the truth when someone asks you about your cane.
The first evening I took it out to get dinner, it was immediately commented on. The cafeteria worker, who I’d bantered with a few times, looked right at the cane then asked me, “are you alright?”
“Yeah, just chronic pain,” I quipped, and was rewarded with laughter.
Humor hides the pain. Jokes make it seem like it doesn’t hurt to be asked such a ridiculous question. In this situation, is it possible for me to be using a mobility aid and meet the implied definition of “alright”?
That was only the first. I faced countless people wanting to ask me about my new metal companion: “why do you need that? Did a doctor give it to you? Is there something wrong with you?”
My answers to all three are: It’s none of your business. It’s none of your business. It’s none of your fucking business.
What I wish I would have said, though, is:
“Yeah, I’m alright. There’s just a flesh-eating worm burrowed in my knee right now.”
Or I could have told them my toes got bitten off by rabid squirrels. I lost my tibia in a bet. I was trying to start a moss garden in my right hip.
Not only is lying to overly nosy people incredibly fun, it’s a good way of telling them that they’re not getting a real answer to their question. Of course, you can just say that. If you want to be blunt and avoid their hilarious confusion.
5. Only use it for walking.
This one’s obvious. Clearly, a cane can serve no other purpose other than mobility support. These boots weren’t the only thing made for walking.
If you do want to get creative, though, here are a few other ways you could use your cane:
- Fish back items that have rolled away on the floor
- Adjust your curtains
- Turn off the light without getting up
- Turn on the light without getting up
- Block people from entering a closed-off space
- Make drawings in the snow
- Defend against wolves or aggressive toddlers
- Proudly display your disability and embrace that this is a part of you, not something you should be shamed for
Ashton Rose 