Knee injury in 12 year old

[holtfam6]

We are going to Disney World in 30 days. My 12 year old injured his knee last Thursday. MRI says traumatic bursitis. He is unable to bear any weight and it is badly bruised. Physical therapy can't get him in til next Wednesday. Ortho says he has a weird case as most people bounce back quickly but he is not. He is in bad pain. My question is do we reserve a wheelchair for him at disney, off disney or rent at home. He may be fine but I want to look into this in case. He may or may not have the strength to walk the whole day at the park. Any advice?

 

[ibcrazie4dizney]

since you have 30 days until you go, you can probably give it alittle time and see what happens with him. if he is able to walk alittle, then renting wc at parks is ok. there are so many what if's.....like will you have a car and using the parking lot each day? if you are, then I would ask dr to get a temp handicap hanger tag for your car. that way you can park in handicap lot. but this can be a little walk to get to the wheel chair rental and we found not many times were there wheel chairs in the parking lot to use to get inside the park to rent one. if you are flying, you can arrange with airport to use a wheel chair or have seen them drive you in golf carts. if he ends us needing one all the time, I would rent one from outside company and have delivered to resort. that way, no matter where you go, you have it and it will probably be cheaper and save rental time each day. I wouldn't think you should have a problem finding one closer to the trip. even if he is starting to feel better, I would still watch him, the parks are tons of walking and even good legs get beat up, you wouldn't want to damage any healing he has done either.

 

[Mama Who]

How big is he?

My boy was adult size at 12. If your kid is more reasonably sized (why DO they keep growing?) he might need a smaller wheelchair which I do not believe Disney offers. I'd rent offsite.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

I would rent off site as you can not take park chairs out to buses or other transportation. end of day will be the worse as he will be tired and lines long. plus you will have at the resort if needed

 

[lanejudy]

You could wait to see what the PT thinks, but really - even if he "seems" 100% better in a month, WDW involves a lot of walking and a lot of stress on the legs and knees. I'd reserve a pediatric wheelchair from an offsite vendor. It will be less expensive than at the parks and you'll have it for those late evenings returning to the resort. If you get close to time and really think you won't need it, then you can cancel. I'm not sure how many pediatric chairs are stocked by each vendor, so it might be better to reserve and cancel later than to wait and have trouble finding one at the last minute. A pediatric chair will fit him much more comfortably than a regular adult-sized. And he doesn't need to ride at all times if he's up to some walking.

Enjoy your vacation!

 

[SueM in MN]

I agree with the other posters.

On our trip in April, I was wearing a Fitbit that kept track of steps and miles. We were traveling with several people who were not regular walkers, do we took it a little easy for their sake. Even with that, we walked more than 5 miles a day - sometimes up to 9!
So, even if he is walking and is no longer in pain, he may not be up to walking at WDW.
I would see what the PT thinks as far as progress. You could either rent a wheelchair now and cancel if he doesn't need it or just wait until closer to the time.
See post 2 of the disABILITIES FAQs thread for information about renting at the parks and from off site vendors. Follow the link in my signature or look near the top of this board.
The park wheelchairs are adult with 20 -22 inch wide seats. Some of the rental companies have wheelchairs down to 16 inch wide, which is good for a small adult or school age child. The vendor list on the FAQs thread has information about places I know have smaller sized chairs.
If you tell the person making the reservation your child's height and weight, they can tell you if they have a size that should work.

One other possibility besides renting at WDW would be renting one from home and bringing it.
Advantages:
- you would be able to use it at the airport and would not need to arrange with the airline for skycap or wheelchair service.
- mobility devices fly for free - no extra fee and it does not count as baggage. You can gate check it and bring it right to the door of the plane. It will be at the door when you get off
- you would be able to use it all over, at the resort, at the parks, if you drive - from parking to the park
- often less expensive to rent from your home area than at WDW off site vendors

Disadvantages:
- you would have to transport it from your home to the airport and back again, which may be a tight fit.

 

[clanmcculloch]

My 12yo had bursitis behind her achiles tendon but now has additional issues in her knee as a complication of the bursitis and tendonitis. Issues associated with it have been going on since the beginning of April and she is most definitely not a typical case (it's looking like she probably has another condition which makes her prone to these types of injuries and which also makes recovery from these types of injuries more difficult). I can sympathize. We head to DL in around 6 weeks. She just had her first PT session on Tuesday (her evaluation was the week before). The PT said to wait and see how she's doing as we get closer before deciding if we need a wheelchair for our trip or not. I've got the contact info for a highly recommended company so that I can call when I have a better feel for it. I'm betting she'll need it for at least the longer days. If we were going to WDW I'd definitely get one. We'll be at DL and will probably need one for our park days but I'm not sure about our days at other area attractions. But, in my DD's case she's taking a loooooong time to heal.

Everything I read about bursitis says that there's a wide variance in how long it takes to heal. It could be anywhere from 1 week 2 months before the pain stops. From what I understand, once the pain's not there during every day, activities, it'll still be tough to handle more activity for a while. This is my way of saying that even if he's no longer in pain when you go, the distances at WDW could very well still be too much for his knee to handle.

When DD12 was 10 she had a broken ankle and needed a wheelchair. The most important advice I can give you is to make sure you get the right size wheelchair. We got a 16" chair and it was barely the right size and in fact was bordering on too big. She was 4'8" at the time. If the chair is the wrong size then he'll be extremely uncomfortable if he sits for any significant amount of time. You cannot get anything but an 18" chair in the parks. You cannot bring the in park chairs outside of the parks to the bus stops or back to your resort. The distances around the resort as well as to and from the bus stops should not be underestimated. If he's no longer in pain from day to day activity then he can probably handle parking the chair and walking around some areas in the parks but you'll still want the offsite rental so that you can get the right size chair.

We didn't bother with a rental from home. We used an airport wheelchair in the airports and had the wheelchair delivered to our resort. I can see the merit of a rental at home so I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying that we didn't and it was fine.