The Amazing i Walk 2.0

I had seen an advert for the i-Walk 2.0 when I looked to see if knee-scooters might help near the beginning of having a broken leg. I was really excited, but the Dr. I saw at the Fracture Clinic took one look at the picture of the device and declared that it would put pressure on my patella and cripple me. I left the idea for a week or 2, then did more digging. No-one mentioned patella problems, and I sent a query to the UK distributor, who confirmed that the device didn't put any pressure on the patella at all. I took the plunge and bought one. The gadget is essentially a strap-on peg-leg with a shelf behind for the lower-leg to sit on.

Getting it set up wasn't quite as easy as the set up video suggested, but not too difficult, and the "How to get walking" video was easy enough to understand. The only thing was the feeling of terror, initially, at trusting something other than your own leg to walk on. However, that passed very quickly.  Just standing on the leg and gently swaying from side to side or doing a slight forward bend, really helps the body to work out that this is ok. My initial problem was that my fibula was still moving about, so I didn't really try with the i-Walk for the next week.

So - 4 weeks in, and the doc said "we'll leave the cast on for 3 more weeks" - I was starting to feel quite claustrophobic, but this just took it up a notch. It's hard for the family to drop everything and take you places, so life with a broken leg for me has been quite limited in the main, as I can't drive and getting about with crutches is very tiring and sore on the wrists especially. Time to embrace the i-Walk. I strapped it on again, and walked around the garden, holding on to my husband's hand in case of tripping - it worked ok, though I felt a bit nervous. I also hadn't reckoned with the fact that my good leg would be doing a lot of balancing because of my nervousness with the i-Walk, so I had to call it a day due to my buttock cramping like a bastard (yes, there was swearing!). I didn't try it again until the next day, when I put it on for a little meander around the house, and tried stairs for the first time. It was brilliant! Stairs were suddenly quite easy, though that ease was reduced slightly by members of the family standing behind me as I went up or down, convinced I was going to pitch-pole down the stairs.

The i-Walk also meant that I could go to a long-awaited Eddie Izzard comedy show (which was ace!), because the leg meant I could walk up and down the stairs in the auditorium. There is a bit of an issue of not looking like you need extra space behind for the leg on its shelf. We put my son on point duty, but he actually got too close and nearly tripped me himself! Still - it's actually not to hard to skip and save yourself. We also chose to go up in the lift, mainly because it's slower going upstairs and I didn't want to get stampeded by crazed Eddie fans if I held them up.

I now have just 1 week to go, and the leg is great. I can walk around the house and garden, and I've made a few visits to my place of work (which is a community allotment), though I find having an arm to hang onto is reassuring on rough surfaces.

It's not a perfect replacement for having 2 legs, obviously. The action isn't as smooth as walking, because the leg really can't be modified enough to make it a custom fit, but it gets easier each time you use it. I can now walk pretty well. You also need to be careful of grippy surfaces like longer grass, carpets, rubber floors, as they may stop you swinging the peg leg through abruptly if you don't lift it high enough. It may also be necessary to change the height of the leg if you are wearing shoes. However, the major limiting factor is really the fact that you can only kneel for a certain amount of time before needing a rest, and keeping your leg bent for extended periods of time is obviously not ideal, so you do need to take breaks. The adverts for the device possibly gloss over this, or maybe have some folk who are a lot harder than I am - the woman who reckoned it allowed her to return to work as a hairdresser, for example. I could see it allowing someone to return to a job with more sitting though.

All in all, I'm really pleased I bought it, but anyone doing so will still need to schedule plenty of rests and sitting with leg up time into their day, and it does need practice. I do wish I'd started to use it sooner, as I think some of the sore muscles maybe came from having been sat so much and then getting them back into action. Hopefully I've helped myself get my legs re-conditioned now - we'll see when the cast comes off next week.

If anyone in the UK wants to buy an i-Walk, you need to use this link