Let me be the first to break this news to you: Breaking your foot is not cheap. You are going to buy things you’ve never needed or wanted before. You’re also going to rearrange your furniture into a strange configuration so you can get around, but never mind that — we’re here to talk about shopping. And from now on, all your shopping will be dictated by whether or not you can get free shipping.
Amazon is going to become your best friend. If you know someone with a Prime account, take advantage for free two-day shipping and get some of the Pantry items that aren’t available to all Amazon shoppers.
I should really take a picture of the giant pile of empty cardboard boxes sitting in my corner here. It’s huge. I considered hiring someone on Task Rabbit to recycle them for me, but I guess I have an errand to look forward to once I can walk again.
So without further ado, here is a look at my broken foot spending spree:
Key purchases:
Snacks, snacks, snacks — I read that to heal a broken bone, your body needs protein and amino acids and a whole bunch of stuff. 
Basically, you need to eat food with nutritional value. I will talk about getting fresh food in another post, but I made sure to stock up on snacks with protein, especially since I am a vegetarian. I bought mixed nuts that have some nutrients that are supposed to be good, like magnesium and copper. (I read that salt doesn’t help bone healing so I bought unsalted.) I got a couple boxes of Justin’s peanut butter packets, which are portioned out so I don’t eat like 20 servings by accident. (The honey peanut butter is sweet but not overly sweet — it’s a nice little dessert when craving something sweet without going overboard.) And I had a peanut butter granola that I was eating — no clue where I bought from originally — that had simple ingredients. So I ordered a box of six bags in peanut butter flavor (are you detecting a theme? I love peanut butter) because I thought the oats, peanut butter and flax seed would be good for me.
Bed wedge — I tried a pile of blankets and pillows to elevate my foot, but a) I don’t own enough extra blankets and pillows I don’t 
use, and b) it wasn’t stable enough. They kept falling over. So I bought this bed wedge. Unfortunately, I sleep on my stomach, but I am still able to use this bed wedge to keep my foot elevated — it’s just elevated by me bending my knee and resting it on the wedge’s angle. This was almost $40, which seems way over priced, but my doctor told me to keep my foot elevated above my heart. I’m not really sure why I am supposed to elevate my foot because I have barely any pain, even if it is still swollen, but my doctor was very direct about this. For best results, I put the bed wedge under my fitted sheet so it can’t get kicked off the bed.
An ottoman — When not in bed (like if you’re chillin’ in your wheelchair at your desk, which is where I spend like 90% of my days now, sadly) you 
should still keep your leg elevated. At least that’s what my doctor told me. So I got this ottoman, which is 15 inches off the ground. At $28, this is one of the few purchases that will have usefulness after my foot is healed since I can store stuff inside of it, and it’s still a place to sit or put my feet up. I got this particular one based on the reviews, and I do think it looks nice, is sturdy and the top is soft enough to be a comfortable resting spot for a foot. It did smell like weird chemicals at first (which the packaging said was normal) but the smell went away after a couple days. Overall, one of my best purchases.
Shower bench — This was by far my most humiliating-but-important purchases. Without a shower bench, my only option
was sitting on the ledge of my bathtub, or using the ledge to hurdle me in and out of the tub — but the ledge is porcelain that gets quite slippery when wet. Getting in and out of the tub seemed sketchy at best. You shift your weight entirely from one leg to the other to get in and out of a tub normally. How embarrassing would it be to break another body part naked in the shower? Or worse, how awful would it be to break my other foot? Hell no, I wasn’t risking it. At more than $50, this was not cheap, but it does make showering a lot more stable and less scary. Assembly didn’t require any tools and took about 5-10 minutes. (Luckily, I have a removable Aircast, so no need to worry about getting my foot wet — I’m able to just worry about not falling in there — but I imagine this would be a good way to hold your foot out of the shower if necessary.) You don’t have to sit on it when you shower, although I did at first when I was my least stable. After having it a couple weeks, I knelt on it with my damaged leg and stood on my other leg. Without something to kneel on, standing in the shower on one foot would be very dangerous.
Netflix — I don’t own a TV and I never used Netflix because I just tended to torrent the few shows I did watch. (Okay, I’ve only watched one show in the past several years, which was Mad Men.) But you’re going to be hella bored with no where to go and not much to do. You can start a Netflix free trial and watch tons of random crap. (For me, Breaking Bad is just okay. We’ll see how it goes. My watch list is huge. I am going to watch House of Cards next.)
Household items — I actually started doing this before I broke my foot, but once I couldn’t run to the store easily anymore, I was glad I did. Whether you order online or get it from a store somehow, buy in bulk. I ordered a giant pack of paper towels, a giant thing of pads (ladies only) and a ton of toilet paper. It’s actually cheaper to buy in these huge quantities. You need storage space of some kind to make this useful, but I am not going to need paper towels, pads or toilet paper for weeks and weeks. My supply should last well into my foot being healed. Fingers crossed!
A way to get around — See my post where I compare crutches vs. a knee scooter vs. a wheelchair. You need at least one of these, but probably two. You can rent or buy.
Other good things to have:
Dumbbells — I already owned a pair of 5-pound and 10-pound dumbbells, but you will start to feel like a fat, lazy ass when you wheel around all day and never leave your home. I recommend the 5-pound for a woman — it’s not heavy, but you can do higher reps to get to the burning place where you’re building muscle. Since the calf above your broken foot is going to shrink into nothing, you might want to try to replace it with other muscle and keep your metabolism up.
Portable speaker — I already owned one of these, and it’s great to be able to listen the show/movie you’re watching or the music you’re playing while doing dishes/laundry/etc. in the other room without blasting it super loud. When you’re in a wheelchair and can’t easily run over to hear something, the portable speaker is handy.
Games — Maybe like me, you had removed Candy Crush from your phone because you felt it was causing you to waste time better spent doing other things. Well, put it back on your phone. You’re not going anywhere fun, or even anywhere not-fun-but-necessary. I’ve considered buying an actual game controller and learning how to play FIFA 16 for real — I did buy it to support women being included in the game, but it was way too complicated for a keyboard and mouse so I just got a refund — but Netflix is keeping me busy.
Sweatpants with pockets — Trust me. You will be spending all your days in sweatpants. Whether you go for crutches, a knee scooter or a wheelchair, you’re probably going to need your hands so having pockets for your phone or keys or whatever is super useful.
Broken Fifth Metatarsal 