It is 7 weeks to the day since my accident in Geneva, and I
am finally able to walk around pain-free with a relatively strong and stable
ankle. The abrupt failure to even start the swim and the frustrations of
debility have left me feeling sad and demotivated at times, but the last two
weeks have seen a rapid acceleration in the healing process in ways that have
completely transformed my ability to get around and enabled me to begin rebuilding my lost
fitness....including, at last, a return to the pool.
I had always thought of physio as something you did after an injury had pretty much healed
rather than to facilitate healing, and so when I first contacted Mark Wilkinson
of Skipton’s Paragon Physiotherapy, I asked whether it was even worth coming in
while the injury was still relatively new and angry or whether I should hold
off for a bit. He was emphatic that I should start immediately and
offered me an appointment for the next day. This, as it turns out, was one of
the best decisions I have made and Mark has been pivotal to my recovery. He put
me on an intensive regime of cold therapy, and kept me off the foot for longer
than I would have if left to my own devices, but then two weeks ago, the pace
of treatment changed and we went from resting, to simple strengthening exercises with a
stretch band, to a wobbly cushion for proprioception, to today – a session of
strength and proprioception tests that had me balancing on wobble boards, doing
squats on a bosu ball, bouncing on an unstable trampoline whilst boxing or
throwing and catching a ball, doing walking lunges carrying a 10kg weight and
jumping two-footed over low hurdles whilst trying not to thud to a landing with
the finesse of a sack of potatoes (apparently, we were aiming for balletic, but
let’s face facts…).
It’s such a fascinating process to go through. Weaknesses I
couldn’t even feel sprang to the surface as I tried to do various exercises….or
more accurately, they ran through my body as it tried to respond to the
demands I was placing on it. Occasionally, my right hand would start to shake
violently mid-exercise; with all my focus and energy on my left foot, it was as
if the embodied effort and tension of completing the task was pouring into my
unattended opposite hand. And then there was the step – a stable platform, barely
a foot high, which I had to jump up onto, two-footed, from standing. The first
time Mark asked me to do it, I couldn’t even get my feet off the floor – it was
as if my brain wouldn’t even let me consider jumping. Apparently this is a
defence mechanism – the brain knows that all is not well and that the
proprioception is damaged and stops you putting yourself at risk. But this
isn’t a “mind over matter” affair – you can’t ‘think’ your way out of it.
Instead, you have to take the time to restore the neural pathways before the
jump even becomes thinkable. The body is never simply a matter of mechanics.
And so….after all the balancing, hopping and jumping, I have
finally been discharged from treatment with my foot strong and stable enough to
move safely through everyday life without the immediate risk of going over on
it again. I still need to be careful with it and to keep up with exercises to
build on the progress already made, and it’s still a bit sore at the end of a
busy day and needs to be iced, but it is a world apart from the day I hobbled
home from Barcelona. I have started swim training again, and have Geneva II firmly in my (long-range) sights.
And so, my advice to anyone who finds themselves in a
similar position in the future is: find yourself an experienced, well-qualified
sports physiotherapist as soon as possible and do whatever they tell you to do.
I am hugely indebted to Mark for his expertise and care and learned a lot in
the process.
But most of all, try not to fall down steps in the first place. It saves a lot of trouble later.
