I had spent the weekend up north visiting family, an in-between all of their birthdays sort of occasion. My train was delayed, I was desperate to get home, it was 1am. Somehow, that all collided to make me miss the bottom step of the bus and the culmination of a heavy backpack, the heavier stepping and the bus still slightly moving meant that I fractured my ankle in three places. Having my earphones in didn’t help, as I didn’t hear the cracking that would have told my brain how serious my fall was. I tried to get up of course, expecting it to be a sprain. I’d never broken anything before. My anger rising at the bus driver’s handling of the situation, at the ambulance not coming, at being in the cold for an hour, at a swollen ankle, at myself for being so mindless, at emergency services asking me if anything was broken when I’d not broken anything before... by the time I got to A&E and was left by the taxi driver in a wheelchair on my own facing triage, with the cleaner mopping around me because it was 02:20, seeing that no one else was around, well, I was sobbing. I’d been holding my leg up for an hour because any resting of the foot itself would cause the bones to move. The severity of what had happened had sunk in. The shock had worn away and I was just pissed off.
It all seems a bit of a surreal blur. I’d been x-rayed, sedated and ‘manipulated’, taken to a ward, had blood drawn, had my swelling checked out and taken to surgery within about 7 hours. I woke up to a new metal ankle and a soft cast. The next day I was on crutches and being discharged.
I was terrified of the crutches. Really nervous. One of those big-deep-breath-and-go sorta moments. They’re just not as stable as legs - but then again, my own legs weren’t stable previous to that. I’m a bit more steady now. I’ve been looking at exercises that can be done whilst on crutches to help keep muscle strength. If you’ve read other posts, you’ll see that I’m a hiker. That photo above shows a moment when I had just managed to make myself coffee (on crutches) and realised that the cup said, “I’d rather be on Helvellyn” where I was supposed to be next week. I spent my day in hospital after surgery cancelling trips: the Lake District next week, Wales two weeks after that, Scotland a month later... I’ve left a navigation trip open in June. Mainly because I’ve paid for it so there’s not much I can do... but as a sort of motivation, I’ve not cancelled completely. I’m supposed to walk 62 miles non-stop in July for Oxfam. I know deep down that it’s tough going anyway, so with a technically new ankle, it’ll be even worse. But I can’t give up hope that I’m strong enough to get myself to the point where I can at least do something. So the Peak District navigation trip is far enough away for recovery, but close enough that I can see some sort of light... Of course I would rather be up Helvellyn. But I’d had this feeling that maybe I was being too cocky, pushing myself too much. I have a tattoo that says, “Our steps seal fate”. Well, my steps (or mis-steps) have sealed fate. I either take this as something to slow me down (and maybe it will physically do so), or I take it as a strengthening whereby I err on the side of caution but am more humble about what my body can do.
Seeing my blood and bone draws, I can see that I’m massively low in phosphate, protein and red blood cells. So, perhaps I would have fallen sometime anyway, and maybe it would have been up a mountain. As my dad was driving out of the driveway on Sunday, me waving bye to my mam, I’m trying not to think that it’s the last time, that really I am terribly scared of what I’d gotten myself into with wanting to do ridge walks. I still want to do them, in fact, feel like I need to do them, because now I’m even more scared, because I’m now even more aware of how quickly things can change. Looking at ankle fracture physio with two months before that point rears it’s painful head, I can already feel the struggle it’s going to be, even for such simple movements that I would do in normal training. It’s making me anxious, but this isn’t going to be it. I really miss the ease of making a cup of tea when you’ve got two working legs! It’s heartbreaking when something that had become part of you is suddenly taken away. After I’d made that coffee and was sat in my kitchen alone, the realisation that it’s going to be a long journey sank in. But I only momentarily dropped in optimism. There’s no point in being pessimistic about something that has already happened. I just have to get on with it. It was a stupid accident that was no fault but my own. The ambulance could have got to me sooner (rather than a taxi), but all in all, it was all down to me. And despite help of very good and caring people, it will be down to me for... the rest of my life. SO. Physio, protein, not too much over the top planning... take it easy, you’ll get there! Time for drugs.
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