My anklegeddon started on a warm day at the end of August 2020. Six months into the Covid 19 pandemic, my life seemed finally to be on track.
After a few years of existential and rudderless drifting, I’d been made redundant from a boring job and was fitter than I’d been in years. I’d beaten a series of frustrating and chronic injuries and was feeling bulletproof. I was with a girl I loved, and had a lifetime of adventure to look forward to. Our lives were full of running, climbing, river swimming and mountaineering. We were that annoying couple who did an ab workout together before having sex. I felt stable. I had a few quid in my pocket for the first time in my adult life, and was excited by sinking energy into a new life in the Army Reserve.
We’d just returned from a cycling trip in the Dolomites, and keen to wring the last days out of the summer I went on a climbing weekend with two of my best pals. Life was good.
Stanage edge is well known mecca for climbers - a 3.5 mile stretch of grit stone in the Peak District national park which draws from around the country.
I don’t have much more to share about the day. Like all the best weekend warriors, we spent the morning faffing around the outdoor shops of Hathersage, did a few routes, ate a large quantity of sandwiches, and by around six o clock were ready to call things a day. Rain started to fall, but then a call went up from the group “ONE MORE ROUTE!”.
I hastily chose a final and fairly non-de script route from the guidebook (I can’t bring myself to look up it’s name, or even look at the guidebook for now). The main feature of the route was a large off width crack in the gritstone. I didn’t have large enough gear on my harness, but wasn’t worried.
I was in a hurry and wanted to go home. The route was well within the my climbing grade, and so i set off anyway, jamming my fists into the crack and slithering my way up the slab. I figured the quicker I climbed, the quicker I could get to the pub and then into my sleeping bag.
But then I was in trouble. Only a couple of meters from the top, the crack became increasingly damp and greasy. I began to struggle. To slip. To thrutch. To jam my limbs into the crack with a sudden panic and intensity. The rock was wet and I was losing my grip. I looked down to my belayer Mick who suddenly seemed a very long way away. I had placed a single camming device, wedged in the rock about somewhere below my flailing feet. It looked sad and lonely jammed into the crack.
I made a quick mental calculation in a state of increasing panic. I was probably 2 meters above the device, and so would fall at least 4 meters. Mick was at least 8 meters below me. So with an allowance for stretch and slack in the rope and as long as the cam held, I was safe.
“Take” I shouted as I let go of the wall, expecting the familiar rush of a few meters of free fall followed by the springy grab as the rope caught my weight. I expected to end up breathless and rather embarrassed, hanging a couple of feet above Mick’s head.
There was no pain immediately. But my foot was now at ninety degrees to my shin. I looked down to Mick and Martin at the belay station. “I think I’ve just broken my ankle”. I shouted.
A silence came from below as the pair looked up at me dangling from the rope from the solitary cam. “Perhaps it’s just dislocated” came back the reply.
I’d made a conscious decision to try and slither down the rock and not jump cleanly away from the face as i fell. I’d worried that swinging out from the rock would place a bigger shock load onto the single cam in the wall protecting me, and i was well aware that a a ground fall could be deadly. What I hadn’t accounted for was the risk of my legs hitting the bottom of the crack, and that is a miscalculation I will live with forever.
I took a deep breath, and still hanging on the rope I straightened by ankle. The pain was only about to begin. Life had changed forever.
This blog, my ankle, stem cells and Dr. Saw Khay Yong
I am currently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia recovering from surgery to my ankle which was damaged in a climbing accident in July 2020.
 The accident left me with painful post-traumatic arthritis in my tibia talus joint and totally changed my life.
I came to to visit Dr. Saw Khay Yong at KLSMC (Kuala Lumpur Sports Medicine Centre) after hearing about his work from his former patients, and to a lesser extent reading various discussions on facebook groups and on websites like kneeguru.
I’m writing this blog to try and offer anyone considering coming to Malaysia for treatment by Dr Saw a transparent account of my journey.
Considering the claim that the doctor can successfully and reliably regenerate articular cartilage I found it strange that there was so little on the internet about his work beyond his own published papers.
There are abundance of Stem Cell derived regenerative therapies available at various small clinics in far flung places around the world, many of them selling false hope to desperate people.
 A glut of Stem Cell derived therapies seem to offer unregulated cures to every kind of chronic ailment, often sold by pushy quacks with little scientific data to back their claims. The only commonality between them is huge prices, which make this frontier of medicine a mine field for patients.
I didn’t wish to become a victim of snake oil, but I was very also desperate to find a solution, so against the advice of my consultants I decided to at least visit KLSMC for an in person consultation.
I had my surgery in June 2022 and I expect to have a fairer understanding of the outcome of the surgery by around December, although the regenerative process will take up to two years until I’ll be sure of my outcome.
