Long road back to Scotland

I’m midway through a months-long journey back to Scotland. Beds are booked in the CIC hut for February, hopeful that decent winter conditions will align with a school holiday, but will the leg be up to it? This trip to Scotland began back in November, with the first physio intervention after being knocked off my bike by a car 2 weeks previously. 

I’ve been caught off guard by the different phases of coming back from an injury like this; even though in the scheme of things it’s turning out ok.

Day 0 -That hurts, this is an intense situation. Is it serious? Not broken? Phew.

Day 1 - Feeling lucky, could’ve been far worse.

Day 2 - Feeling unlucky, takes 20 minutes to get downstairs to make a cuppa.

Day 3 - Novelty of being off work and resting. TV on demand, books, time to myself.

Day 4 - Away for a week in N. Yorks. Should be easy to rest up. Holiday cottage with hot tub. A week of relaxing but tinged throughout with getting to grips with crutches, not being able to walk more than 50 metres and empathising with Mum, who has watched us all going off for walks from the car for 30 years after needing a wheelchair. A particular low-point but moving moment when Mum (further disabled by some sort of stroke) lifts my leg up onto the sofa for me as I’m incapable due to pain, swelling and low knee mobility.

Day 8 - trip to York A&E as swelling and pain got suddenly worse. This might be more serious after all. 

Week 3 - this is going to be slow progress, it still doesn’t bend, it’s swollen and bruised and I can’t walk anywhere. I can’t even drive as it’s clutch leg, so I’m stuck in until a friend has a day off work and offers to take me out on a “welfare trip”. Fortunately I have a couple of such friends. Everyone’s second question after finding out what happened; “are you going to claim against him?” This seems more important to others than how I’m actually doing.

Proper low point was slipping over in the shower in a leg-bent position and howling in pain unable to get up until Mrs L came to help, but not before I’d broken the door in an instinctive attempt to escape the agony.

Week 4 - a small improvement. Not much but if I look back a week I can see the difference. I can now manage to be on my feet long enough to cook a meal. No longer feeling guilty that I’m in all day but can’t do much to help around the house.

Week 5 - mental health has been everywhere this week. Being determined, then overdoing it. Realising that some days I’ve gone backwards. Often wondering if it’ll ever be quite right again, it might not be.

Week 6 - massive steps forward. Quite suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, but no doubt due to diligent following of perfectly suited physio exercises, the knee is starting to bend much more, the strength is returning and walks of more than 10 minutes are possible and much needed.

Week 7 - much excitement when a friend lends me a indoor bike trainer to help me improve my strength followed by immense disappointment that my knee doesn’t yet bend enough to turn a full pedal stroke.

Week 8 - indoor training commences with knee now getting to the 90 degrees necessary for such things. This is when I get my first taste of how fitness evaporates when you’re not able to be active. 10 sweaty minutes were all I could manage, the app connected to it letting me know I’ve cycled the equivalent of about a mile and a half. It might be better not to connect the app again for now.

Week 9 - with apprehension, my first day back at work, using crutches but able to move around and be on my feet long enough to be useful in a classroom again. Absolutely knackered by the end of the day and grateful for phased return working alternate days. Also really grateful to workmates for the lift, still can’t drive our manual car, it needs too much left leg workout. 

Week 11 - Christmas holidays, much easier to get the balance right between pushing it and resting. Dared to take a real bike ride; a short, slow and careful one, but the freedom rediscovered in propelling myself around the countryside that morning was like nothing else. Back on the road!

And since, cycling to work has got gradually quicker (but not particularly easier) with strength and fitness noticeably improving every day. That February target is starting to seem more realistic.

Week 15 - A proper day out. I figured that the only way to know whether I might be capable of big days out in the mountains would be to go for a big day out (Peak district) and see if I broke or not. With gales blowing us literally off the path and rain biting into our cheeks we made a good 12 miles around the Roaches area with a Scafell’s worth of ascent. Arriving back at the car, I was asked how it was going, was I broken? I’d had a bit of a sore knee for the last 30 minutes, but the others empathised, pointing out that this was simply the price of that walk in our mid-40s. 

Also, it was the wrong knee. I reckon I’m ready.