My physios say I should be down to one crutch. I'm 9 weeks post ORIF.
One physio says I should have the crutch on my bad leg side, the other says it should be opposite.
To me it seemed to make sense it is the bad leg side. But then I tried it and actually it made more sense to be the opposite side.
AND THEN I TRIED TO WALK ON ONE CRUTCH
and it is really really completely impossible. My leg simply does not hold me up any more. So far from wondering if I will have a limp. I literally can't walk on that leg. I imagine I can, but when I try it I can't. It just doesn't hold me up any more.
I feel distraught. I don't trust it. But it is more than this. After 9 weeks it should feel ok, but it feels as weak as a piece of balsa wood. It feels like it will simply snap in two if I put any weight on it. And it hurts like buggery.
My aims of walking without a limp have been downgraded today to simply walking again.
This injury is a million times worse than breaking my back. I seriously don't know if I'll walk again. My leg doesn't work and besides my head doesn't trust it to anyway.
Sunday, 14 October 2018
the Manchester half
It is the early hours of Sunday morning, and a year ago I applied to run the Manchester half. I watched it run past the end of my road. I had just run a half marathon in Cologne on a CBSO tour - I knew I was totally capable of the distance, I'd just never done one officially. I was excited to apply for it. I couldn't quite work out why I hadn't done it in 2017, but somehow never got round to applying. I was getting back into running in a big way. My PBs were way off my pre-spinal injury time, but my distance was increasing and it was exciting. And so my first 2018 goal was set. To run an official half marathon. And I had a year to train for it and get a great time. I was really set on the goal. It was the only thing actually set in stone as I entered 2018. That I would run a half marathon in October.
I don't know why I didn't enter any others. I guess I was happy for my goal to be a year away. I didn't want to rush it - there was no need. I was happy as it was. I suffered a knee injury in May and didn't run much for a while, but the night before my accident in August I ran again and it was okay. On 1st August I had started an exercise diary. I had 5 weeks off. I was going to get really fit. Getting my running back was first thing on my mind. I had a half marathon goal. I was going after it in August.
Then I had my accident.
I've broken my leg I thought. I can cope with this. I've had worse. I've broken my back! FfS I can deal with a broken leg. These are the thoughts that kept my mind in a really really good place while I was in agony in A&E on the night of 6th August. I, for some reason, thought that a broken leg equalled 6 weeks in a boot and then back to normal. I remember thinking about my half marathon and wondering if I'd be okay to do it without the training. Seriously. This is what I thought. That I wouldn't have time to train, because I had a broken leg, so I'd have to run it without the training. But that was probably okay, because I was fit as a butchers dog right then, so that would carry me through. At some point in the next few weeks I realised I'd have to defer my place for a year. Before realising again that this was ridiculous. And finally I cancelled my place. I still thought I'd be doing it, just maybe not next year.
But now. Now I realise that I may not ever run again. And certainly I may never run that distance again. And I feel completely distraught that I missed my chance at that official half marathon. And I feel completely devastated that today should have been MY DAY. A hugely significant day in my spinal recovery. Fuck you broken back. I just ran a half marathon. Who thought that would happen. That is what should have happened tomorrow. That is what my facebook status would have said tomorrow. And now it won't. And won't ever. And the fucking marathon goes right past my road. I won't even be able to sleep through it. Tonight, in my parallel life, I should have been getting ready for the marathon. Excited. Running gear out ready. Meal plan, drinks plan organised. I would have had a great day. I had a PB to get. It could only get better than Cologne. I was so excited about it. And instead, I'm here at 1230 am unable to sleep, aware that I have to somehow get through tomorrow, and it won't be my glory day and I won't even be able to look at the runners without crying, knowing that I should have been there with them. My post spine glory day, and instead I'm here with a crappy leg and an ankle that doesn't work, wondering if I'll ever walk again let alone run.
It is hard to notice how your emotions are dealing with your physical restraints and be able to do nothing about them. Last year I wasn't running the marathon, but it didn't matter. Because I went out and cheered on everyone I knew at the end of my road. And this year every time the marathon even comes up in conversation I burst into tears. I can't even talk to my friends who I want to support about it because I know I'll cry and make them feel bad for something which has nothing to do with them.
and this is the thing I hate most of all about this horrible and evil injury. That it has made me resent everyone doing the stuff that I fear I'll never do again. It has made me struggle to be positive about people around me doing things I can't. I swore I'd never be like that. I'd always support people who do things I'm not capable of doing, but now that I'm so severely tested that I can't even walk I simply can't be as positive as I thought I could be.
I don't know why I didn't enter any others. I guess I was happy for my goal to be a year away. I didn't want to rush it - there was no need. I was happy as it was. I suffered a knee injury in May and didn't run much for a while, but the night before my accident in August I ran again and it was okay. On 1st August I had started an exercise diary. I had 5 weeks off. I was going to get really fit. Getting my running back was first thing on my mind. I had a half marathon goal. I was going after it in August.
Then I had my accident.
I've broken my leg I thought. I can cope with this. I've had worse. I've broken my back! FfS I can deal with a broken leg. These are the thoughts that kept my mind in a really really good place while I was in agony in A&E on the night of 6th August. I, for some reason, thought that a broken leg equalled 6 weeks in a boot and then back to normal. I remember thinking about my half marathon and wondering if I'd be okay to do it without the training. Seriously. This is what I thought. That I wouldn't have time to train, because I had a broken leg, so I'd have to run it without the training. But that was probably okay, because I was fit as a butchers dog right then, so that would carry me through. At some point in the next few weeks I realised I'd have to defer my place for a year. Before realising again that this was ridiculous. And finally I cancelled my place. I still thought I'd be doing it, just maybe not next year.
But now. Now I realise that I may not ever run again. And certainly I may never run that distance again. And I feel completely distraught that I missed my chance at that official half marathon. And I feel completely devastated that today should have been MY DAY. A hugely significant day in my spinal recovery. Fuck you broken back. I just ran a half marathon. Who thought that would happen. That is what should have happened tomorrow. That is what my facebook status would have said tomorrow. And now it won't. And won't ever. And the fucking marathon goes right past my road. I won't even be able to sleep through it. Tonight, in my parallel life, I should have been getting ready for the marathon. Excited. Running gear out ready. Meal plan, drinks plan organised. I would have had a great day. I had a PB to get. It could only get better than Cologne. I was so excited about it. And instead, I'm here at 1230 am unable to sleep, aware that I have to somehow get through tomorrow, and it won't be my glory day and I won't even be able to look at the runners without crying, knowing that I should have been there with them. My post spine glory day, and instead I'm here with a crappy leg and an ankle that doesn't work, wondering if I'll ever walk again let alone run.
It is hard to notice how your emotions are dealing with your physical restraints and be able to do nothing about them. Last year I wasn't running the marathon, but it didn't matter. Because I went out and cheered on everyone I knew at the end of my road. And this year every time the marathon even comes up in conversation I burst into tears. I can't even talk to my friends who I want to support about it because I know I'll cry and make them feel bad for something which has nothing to do with them.
and this is the thing I hate most of all about this horrible and evil injury. That it has made me resent everyone doing the stuff that I fear I'll never do again. It has made me struggle to be positive about people around me doing things I can't. I swore I'd never be like that. I'd always support people who do things I'm not capable of doing, but now that I'm so severely tested that I can't even walk I simply can't be as positive as I thought I could be.
Tuesday, 2 October 2018
Learning to walk for the third time in my life
I'm learning to walk again. For the third time. And it is definitely the hardest.
The first time was before I remember, so I have no recollection of how it was to stand up on my weak and soft little legs with no hard bones and no muscles and learn to balance. I did it though somehow.
That was great until I broke my back in 2015. Then I spent three weeks in bed unable to move. When I was allowed to move I sat up (with the help of physics), noted how my back felt weird, weak and completely unstable, not to mention excruciatingly painful. Went light-headed. Lay back down. Sat up again the next day, went from sitting to standing. Marvelled how my weak legs found their strength again and noted how my back felt weird. Then I walked. I wrote a blog post about it here. In the end it was a pretty easy task learning to walk again. It was slow and stiff, and I couldn't walk properly for a while, but by 4 months after my accident I was hiking again.
Well this time is an altogether different thing. Now my legs don't work. Nor does my left ankle, or foot. When I say legs I actually mean it. 2 months of immobility on one leg and hopping or crawling on the other actually plays havoc with everything. My brain isn't quite communicating with my legs. Even with my good leg. Everything is conscious. I can't remember how to walk. The nerves aren't firing right. The toes aren't moving right. My ankle that doesn't work isn't bending, flexing or contracting, so my foot feels like a lump of wood that is completely uncontrollable and I don't know which bit of it to put down. You think it will be natural. But it isn't. I've analysed walking to death. I've videoed me walking, studied my good foot and tried to make my bad foot copy. But it just isn't natural. It is slow (I can cope with that) and it is stunted and not fluid. Everything is conscious. I stumble if I stop concentrating. I have to send messages to my toes, my heel, my foot, all of it individual bits of what used to be a fluid motion, to try to make these bits work. It is pretty depressing. And all of this is only partially weight-bearing, that is to say I can't put more than about 10kg on my bad leg, cos the bones aren't really stuck together yet. So I have to go through this whole ritual of walking over scales to try to find out what 10kg feels like, and I have to use my crutches at all time. And even this feeble amount of weight makes me not trust my leg. I feel so scared to use it. Like it won't hold me up, or I'll break it by walking on it.
The first time I tried this I just burst into tears after about 5 steps. "What's the matter?" asked Dad anxiously "does it hurt?" but actually no, it didn't hurt. Except in my head. It hurt a lot up there. As the tears burned my eyes from the inside out I felt furiously angry and desperately sad that I was here, unable to walk. The second time I tried it, the same thing. I couldn't help it. The tears welled up as soon as I pictured myself helplessly stumbling over tiny steps at a snail pace, looking like I'm twice the age I actually am.
It has got better. In the week since I have been allowed to partially weight bear I have definitely got faster and more fluid. I've been walking in this great big medical boot thing with a rocker bottom, and splints to keep my leg, ankle and foot rigid. It is bigger than my other shoe, so you automatically walk with a limp. And my hips are paying for this lopsidedness big time.
Yesterday I decided I wanted to try walking in my trainers. My surgeon hasn't really told me what I can and can't do, so I am winging it a bit. But I recognised that my ankle is not moving in the boot, in fact, it is seizing up, and my sole aim at the moment is to try to get some ankle mobility back (there isn't much left unfortunately). Not to mention my flabby calf, which has atrophied to literally nothing but skin. A completely depressing sight when my leg came out of its plaster prison. There are very few ways to build up calf muscle. Walking is one of them. But not walking in a splint. That doesn't work. So last night for the first time in two months I forced my swollen foot into my left trainer. It felt strange. It is so long since I've worn shoes. My foot felt odd. It is too swollen really, and terribly bruised, and the laces were so loose compared to my right foot. Still, with my trainers on, I stood up on my crutches and walked to the other side of the room. It felt ok. A bit odd. But ok.
So.... I wanted to try it out. Dad and I walked to the co-op. Not very far, about 5 minutes walk by normal standards. Probably half an hour there and the same back. Oh yes, walking is tediously slow in my life. By the time we got there my leg, foot and ankle were throbbing. My leg all the way up to my thigh, because I am literally using muscles I haven't used in two months and atrophied muscles have zero strength. My ankle was busy swelling even more, and my leg throbbed. But you know, despite all of this, it felt good. It felt good to be making progress even if I'm not where I want to be. The progress this week, in terms of long term recovery from an injury as severe as mine, has been pretty intense. I've gone from not being able to move my ankle to being able to move it, albeit hardly at all, and I've gone from hopping on one foot, crawling up my stairs on all fours and hopping down, to walking on two feet, with two crutches, slowly shuffling round my house and even managing stairs (but two feet on each stairs - reciprocal stair climbing and descending is only for people with ankles that work).
It's slow progress. But it is progress.
The first time was before I remember, so I have no recollection of how it was to stand up on my weak and soft little legs with no hard bones and no muscles and learn to balance. I did it though somehow.
That was great until I broke my back in 2015. Then I spent three weeks in bed unable to move. When I was allowed to move I sat up (with the help of physics), noted how my back felt weird, weak and completely unstable, not to mention excruciatingly painful. Went light-headed. Lay back down. Sat up again the next day, went from sitting to standing. Marvelled how my weak legs found their strength again and noted how my back felt weird. Then I walked. I wrote a blog post about it here. In the end it was a pretty easy task learning to walk again. It was slow and stiff, and I couldn't walk properly for a while, but by 4 months after my accident I was hiking again.
Well this time is an altogether different thing. Now my legs don't work. Nor does my left ankle, or foot. When I say legs I actually mean it. 2 months of immobility on one leg and hopping or crawling on the other actually plays havoc with everything. My brain isn't quite communicating with my legs. Even with my good leg. Everything is conscious. I can't remember how to walk. The nerves aren't firing right. The toes aren't moving right. My ankle that doesn't work isn't bending, flexing or contracting, so my foot feels like a lump of wood that is completely uncontrollable and I don't know which bit of it to put down. You think it will be natural. But it isn't. I've analysed walking to death. I've videoed me walking, studied my good foot and tried to make my bad foot copy. But it just isn't natural. It is slow (I can cope with that) and it is stunted and not fluid. Everything is conscious. I stumble if I stop concentrating. I have to send messages to my toes, my heel, my foot, all of it individual bits of what used to be a fluid motion, to try to make these bits work. It is pretty depressing. And all of this is only partially weight-bearing, that is to say I can't put more than about 10kg on my bad leg, cos the bones aren't really stuck together yet. So I have to go through this whole ritual of walking over scales to try to find out what 10kg feels like, and I have to use my crutches at all time. And even this feeble amount of weight makes me not trust my leg. I feel so scared to use it. Like it won't hold me up, or I'll break it by walking on it.
The first time I tried this I just burst into tears after about 5 steps. "What's the matter?" asked Dad anxiously "does it hurt?" but actually no, it didn't hurt. Except in my head. It hurt a lot up there. As the tears burned my eyes from the inside out I felt furiously angry and desperately sad that I was here, unable to walk. The second time I tried it, the same thing. I couldn't help it. The tears welled up as soon as I pictured myself helplessly stumbling over tiny steps at a snail pace, looking like I'm twice the age I actually am.
It has got better. In the week since I have been allowed to partially weight bear I have definitely got faster and more fluid. I've been walking in this great big medical boot thing with a rocker bottom, and splints to keep my leg, ankle and foot rigid. It is bigger than my other shoe, so you automatically walk with a limp. And my hips are paying for this lopsidedness big time.
Yesterday I decided I wanted to try walking in my trainers. My surgeon hasn't really told me what I can and can't do, so I am winging it a bit. But I recognised that my ankle is not moving in the boot, in fact, it is seizing up, and my sole aim at the moment is to try to get some ankle mobility back (there isn't much left unfortunately). Not to mention my flabby calf, which has atrophied to literally nothing but skin. A completely depressing sight when my leg came out of its plaster prison. There are very few ways to build up calf muscle. Walking is one of them. But not walking in a splint. That doesn't work. So last night for the first time in two months I forced my swollen foot into my left trainer. It felt strange. It is so long since I've worn shoes. My foot felt odd. It is too swollen really, and terribly bruised, and the laces were so loose compared to my right foot. Still, with my trainers on, I stood up on my crutches and walked to the other side of the room. It felt ok. A bit odd. But ok.
So.... I wanted to try it out. Dad and I walked to the co-op. Not very far, about 5 minutes walk by normal standards. Probably half an hour there and the same back. Oh yes, walking is tediously slow in my life. By the time we got there my leg, foot and ankle were throbbing. My leg all the way up to my thigh, because I am literally using muscles I haven't used in two months and atrophied muscles have zero strength. My ankle was busy swelling even more, and my leg throbbed. But you know, despite all of this, it felt good. It felt good to be making progress even if I'm not where I want to be. The progress this week, in terms of long term recovery from an injury as severe as mine, has been pretty intense. I've gone from not being able to move my ankle to being able to move it, albeit hardly at all, and I've gone from hopping on one foot, crawling up my stairs on all fours and hopping down, to walking on two feet, with two crutches, slowly shuffling round my house and even managing stairs (but two feet on each stairs - reciprocal stair climbing and descending is only for people with ankles that work).
It's slow progress. But it is progress.
Sunday, 30 September 2018
Who am I?
Who am I and who will I be?
But who am I now?
I struggle with this question. I felt so exhausted when I realised after my accident I was facing the question again. I'd only just become the other new person and I actually really liked the person I became, and now I had to go through it all again. There has been much written about identity after injury. Specifically with regards to athletes. It is all to do with what you identify as, and when the thing you have dedicated your life to gives you an injury that means you can't do it any more you suddenly don't know who you are or what your purpose in life is. In other words, you lose the very thing that makes you you. I've thought long and hard about this question, and I don't just mean since my most recent accident. I mean in general, over the years. I'm not someone's wife. I'm not someone's mother. I'm not even someone's partner. For a while I was someone's widow, but I didn't like identifying as this and I dropped it as soon as I felt emotionally able. (this was several years btw). For a while I was an enthusiastic and practising (in the musician's sense) musician. I played chamber music and did music for fun. I spent entire days practising, and I loved it. It was my job, my hobby, my passion, my social life and my holidays.
Then I discovered climbing. And I became a climber. I had a social life based around climbing, a boyfriend from the climbing wall and I started to live and breathe climbing. I've always been someone who runs, right from uni days, though I haven't always identified as "a runner", only as someone that runs. I started identifying as "a runner" after my first time in Banff 10 years ago. I've always been a "cyclist", as in I use my bike for pleasure and for commuting, but after Andy died I abandoned my bike for 3 years, finally hauling it out of the loft, fixing the punctures and, sobbing (because being on my bike was so tangled up with my life with Andy) I got back on my bike and pushed through the association until I was a cyclist again. I was always a "hiker", well at least since my early 20s, and I have always identified as someone that walks and walks, miles and miles, up hills and for hours. After my spinal accident I identified for a while as someone who broke her back, but I dropped that too. I didn't want to be identified as that. Just like I don't want to be identified now as someone who has a duff ankle.
After I broke my back I didn't run for over a year. I didn't go on my bike for over a year. Both these things upset me at the time, but looking back I was way more upset about the concept of not climbing again, and in the end I was only out from climbing for around 6 months, but I wasn't really climbing hard for a long time. And so, in those months after my back accident I really struggled to find an identity again. I felt like I wasn't me. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know who I would become and I really struggled with it. I thought I might be someone plagued with back pain for my whole life, and in a way I am, but it isn't degenerative, it is better than it was and it is still getting better. I have full function and I trust my spine again. In fact, in many ways I am everything I was before. Or at least I was until 2 months ago. I also became a survivor. A fighter. Someone who has endured great pain and tremendous fear, to come out the other side. (though I only ever identified as this in my head, never outloud). I became more of a trekker than a hiker, more of an endurance junkie. I never did get my running speed back to how it was before my spine. My PBs were always slower. But I ran further than I ever did before, and I discovered not only did I love it, but I loved the possibilities. As for the speed, yeah that pissed me off - always chasing that illusive PB, but I didn't dwell on it too much in the end. Earlier this year I was planning a multi-day run. A trail run. Because this is the other thing that I discovered I loved that I never really did before my spine. Running for trail running sake, and not for miles on a pavement sake. Running for joy and not just for exercise. And this January I became someone who loved winter trail running - I loved the air, the cold and the challenge.
The other thing I became after my spine, is someone who makes things happen and takes every opportunity. Someone who is tenacious and doesn't give up. Not that I wasn't these things before, but I was even more so now. If I had survived breaking my spine I was going to take every opportunity in front of me, and what is more is that I was going to make more happen. Last year I took SEVEN months off work to make opportunities happen. This is how I was living my life. And I loved it. My life felt perfect in so many ways. In a way it was living like this that probably led to my next accident, but I don't regret how I was living my life. Living my life like this was the only thing I could do, the only thing I wanted to do after my accident, and I owed it to the me that lay terrified in hospital, with a broken spine. I owed it to that person to live my life this way. And every little opportunity changed me again. Himalayas. Thailand. Banff. Chamonix. TMB. And after the plateau of breaking my back and basically being in rehab for over a year the graph of change drew a sharp curve. These things made me love my life, smile a lot, laugh a lot, push harder, test myself even more, achieve more, see my fitness improve massively, and my climbing become stronger. It made me live right in the moment, looking forward to the future and blessing my past for bringing me here.
These are the things that made me me, right up until August 6th this year. And by coincidence it isn't the first time my life has changed forever on August 6th, because this was the anniversary of Andy's death. That date will forever be a jinxed one for me.
Now I don't know who I am all over again. I am certainly not the person I was on the morning of August 6th. I have been angry and depressed and suffered terribly both physically and emotionally. I want to be someone seeing opportunity, a chance to grow in spirit, someone grateful I still have my leg, and grateful I'm not paralysed. But I'm struggling. This isn't about another long recovery. If it was, then I could cope. I've done it before, I know what to do. But this time is different. This is about a degenerative risk. A real risk that now I have only a window until my ankle deteriorates. And that window could be months, years or many years. I hope for the latter, or I hope for a miracle that I stay arthritis-free, but I know that there is every chance I will develop post-traumatic arthritis within 1 to 2 years. And once it sets in it is pretty likely to eat away at my quality of life dramatically. There will be further surgeries, pain and decisions, let alone lack of activity, and more time immobile. I'm not talking about my leg bones getting better. They already are. I'm talking about my ankle joint. That precious and incredibly complex bit of engineering that works beautifully until you disturb its many working parts and break its precious lubrication. The way my ankle is now is likely not how it will remain. The scar tissue that will cover the broken cartilage will wear away at the good cartilage on the talus. The bits of broken bones will grow bone spurs which will do the same. And bit by bit my ankle is going to bear the brunt and it will let me know with pain and swelling and immobility. And this is all without considering that my ankle movement is considerably limited than before, and even though I'm sure I'll regain some of this, I'm certain it will never go back to how it was. Things I took for granted before I just can't do, or at best they hurt like buggery. And you know what? I'm really frightened about the future. In a way, even more so than when I broke my back.
Where was I? Who am I?
Well, right now I'm a musician. Thankfully. I'm still one thing I identify as. I'm not a runner. I'm not a climber. I'm not a cyclist. I'm not fit. I'm not in shape. I'm not proud of where I am. I'm definitely not living in the moment. I am not looking forward to the future either. I am not someone planning trips. I'm not a driver. I'm not independent. I'm an invalid. A cripple. Someone who can't walk. WALK. I've always walked, with the exception of 3 weeks after I broke my spine. The not walking is awful. But even normal broken leg people can't walk for a bit, though at least they assume that once they do it again they'll be ok. But I fear my endurance hiking and running will never be part of my future, or at best they will be for a couple of years, but not into my old age like I hoped. If they hurt they won't be fun, and so this part of my life will cease to exist. Because I know from the time after my spine, that you don't want to do hobbies that physically hurt you. That is why it took me over 2 years to be a runner again, because it hurt heaps and I didn't enjoy it after my back accident. Ditto cycling. Also ditto hiking. After India I would say I hated hiking! Though by TMB I loved it. So it took me 2-3 years to embrace those things again. To regain the strength to enjoy them again. And I expect this to be the same. Except that I have a really horrible feeling I don't have 2-3 years. That by that time I'll be degenerating. My ankle will be worse. And this scares the shit out of me.
So who am I? Someone that will spend the rest of my life in and out of hospitals, having more surgery on a messed up ankle, making painful decisions and dealing with pain? Or will I be someone who used to do stuff, but now does only the stuff I can cope with. Will I be one of those runners that runs with a limp and a leg brace that comes kind of last in park run that everyone cheers on because they feel sorry for them. Haven't they done well considering?
I can't be those things. I know I'll be a depressed person first. And I don't want to be that either. I just don't know who I'm going to be and frankly it is terrifying. It doesn't feel like an opportunity. I wish it did! I really want it to. But it feels like a very scary decline.
I hope to be a climber, runner and trekker again. I hope to be someone that crosses glaciers, cycles because it is easier than driving, someone that can do handstands without one foot looking shit, someone who trail runs because they enjoy it, someone who doesn't grimace through pain to walk miles around a new city. I don't want to be the other options.
I'm working so hard. This is the end of my first week out of my plaster prison. I still can't fully weightbear, but in that week I have worked so hard. I've seen two physios, a massage therapist, I've walked every day (in a stupid boot, with crutches) allowing for up to 10 kgs on my bad leg and today I walked almost 3 miles. I have done endless physio reps of stupid exercises that 2 months ago would have been piss easy. I've stretched, massaged, endured the pain of having my scar stretched, scraped and massaged. I've examined my atrophied calf muscle and resigned myself to the fact my leg looks as shapeless as a drainpipe, and then I've done 100 toe lifts, because this is literally the only exercise I can do right now to build calf muscle. I've pushed ligaments until it hurts so much, spent 10 minutes at a time lifting a toe up, and I haven't stopped moving my ankle at all, tiny little circles or just back and forth, dorsiflexion to plantar flexion for hours at a time, because I'm so desperate to get my range of motion back. I've done everything I can this week. Because I want to get better. So badly. I want to walk. I want to run, hike, climb. I feel strangely optimistic. Things are improving. Lots has happened in the 7 days since my plaster came off. I have an astonishingly good team around me - two physios that I truly trust, and a massage therapist that is really, really good. And I'm driven and determined to put in 110% to my rehab. If this was a "normal" broken leg I'd be feeling pretty positive about the potential outcome I think!
But it isn't a normal broken leg. A pilon fracture comes with a life sentence. I feel like I have a limited window. I want to make the most of it. I want my strength back. I'll do what it takes. But who am I bartering with anyway?! It's my body that will decide what happens in the end. Maybe I'll get lucky, maybe I won't. Either way, I'll be living with a time bomb of a black cloud over my head for the rest of my life. I'll have a messed up ankle forever, I'll probably always have pain and swelling and stiffness. I can't turn back the clock. I wish I could. I half wish I had a crystal ball too, but only if it is good news.
So back to my original question. Not knowing who you are, or who you will be is such a bizarre and scary place to be. It is really quite bewildering. I imagine refugees experience it, and survivors of huge natural disasters. When one thing happens and it feels like everything changes. This is the third time in my life it has happened. It is like you are starting from scratch. I know I won't be who I was ever again. Even if I recover really well and the degeneration stays away for years, I won't be who I was. The stars will never line up like that again. I can't be that person, feeling that way. That was someone who had recovered from one injury and felt invincible. I won't be that person again. I will be older! For a start! This will take me years. Maybe I won't go back to those hobbies anyway. Maybe I'll find other things. Maybe I'll move. Maybe I won't want to do anything that vaguely resembles my former life. When I read back on my journals from after my spinal accident I feel like I'm a different person. I know I'll look back on the many thousands of words I have written in the past 8 weeks and feel the same. It is impossible to know right now where I'll be then. I can only hope that the glimmers of optimism and positivity will carry me through. That I will process what has happened to me and all the information I've had to take on board and find a way to get to the other side and still find a way to have fun in my life. That I'll find purpose and self-esteem again. That my confidence will build back up, and that I can trust my body again. It isn't just physical, though of course I hope I'll walk again without a limp or pain, it is mental. My trust in myself, my decisions, my risk assessment and even in my bones has vanished. I don't trust anything. Right now I don't even trust my leg to hold me up. I don't trust my head to make decisions. My self-esteem is on the floor. I thought I was happy, but it turns out that it was THINGS (health, relationship, hobbies and freedom) that was making me happy, and not me. I thought it was ME making me happy and not these other things. That my positivity could cope with anything life threw at me, but it didn't. It couldn't. I sank so much emotionally. So I don't trust myself either. I look forward to the day when this will pass, because the only thing I know from everything that has happened to me in my adult life is that you do eventually adapt and accept every situation. You eventually find a new normal and see good things again in your life. The only certainty is change, and in the end we find a way to accept it. Even this will change. The way I feel and the way I move will change. Only time will tell how.
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Every step
Today, as I sat on a park bench, leaning on my crutches, I watched a plethora of people walk past me. I studied their feet, their fluid movements of their ankles, the mindless way their bodies moved, the thought-free ways they ran, skipped, walked and strode past me; old people with the experience of the world on their shoulders and thousands of miles in their feet, young parents strolling pushing pushcahairs, lovers hand in hand, solitary walkers with their hands behind their backs, people deep in conversation (their thoughts a million miles from their feet), carefree children running ahead of their parents, toddlers with their newly found freedom, teenagers dragging their feet and dozens of others. I watched their feet with a thoughtful, mindful and deliberate intrigue. I was watching what they were doing. I've never thought so hard about walking as I do now. What the actions are of one step, how complex this natural motion is, and I felt sad. I felt sad for the fact I may never walk again so painfree and thought free as I did just 7 weeks ago. I might never be one of these mindless walkers again, even when strolling though a town park (as opposed to a mountain), I may always be one of life's limpers, conscious of every step, definitely conscious when I've taken plenty of them, and always slightly in pain with each one, my ankle not quite working the way it should.
Because here is the thing about walking. I've been walking since I was a toddler. I don't remember learning to walk, but like all babies, I was born with an inherent and subconscious urge to walk. It was natural to do it. No-one had to put me upright and make me realise I too could walk, I wanted to do it and managed it like nearly all toddlers do. From the moment I walked I never thought twice about walking. I just got better at it. I took it for granted. It provided me with freedom. As a teenager it meant I could escape. As an adult it meant I was self propelled no matter where I was. I could walk for 30 miles in Bangkok, 8 hours in Tokyo, run a half marathon in Cologne, up a volcano in Chile and scale a glacier on my feet in the Alps. Walking = freedom. And it also equals a basic human "right"that I've always taken for granted. Even when I broke my back! I couldn't walk for 3 weeks. I remember well those three weeks when I couldn't walk! I felt so trapped and awful. I remember learning to walk, how weird it felt and how uncomfortable. But my legs knew what to do even if my back and torso felt entirely different. And over time my legs grew strong again and carried me great distances, and when my back ached my legs just kept going. Left right left right. I remember the mantra on the Himalayan trek. My back would screech at me in pain but my legs just kept going. Left right left right. One step at a time. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I never analysed what my feet were doing. They just did it!
And now.
I don't trust my feet at all. Or my legs. I haven't walked in 7 weeks. I can't remember how it feels to walk. Now I even crutch in my sleep. I literally have nightmares that I put my weight on my broken leg and collapse into broken heaps. I feel like my leg doesn't belong to me any more. That somehow it is an illusion, like I'm dragging a dead weight around with me. The nerves, muscles, tendons and ligaments have all frozen and gone to sleep. I feel like not only will my left leg not work, but I don't even trust that my right leg will. It is the first time since I was less than a year old that I've not walked for this long and it frightens me what my legs will do next. Or won't do. I have an innate and immense fear that my left ankle will never work again. that I'll have to analyse how to take a step. Work on every single mechanism of taking a step that before I just took for granted and that was completely natural to learn. As a toddler I never analysed my gait like I'll have to now. After 7 weeks in plaster my ankle has seized up. My leg is weaker than it has been at any time in my entire life apart from when I was a newborn baby. This to me is terrifying. The muscles of my calf that poked out of the top of my cast have turned to mush - to literally skin and flab. There is no muscle left. My leg is caked in metal. The bones are weak. My ankle is broken up and reconstructed. The cartilage is broken too. The gaps between my leg and my foot are interrupted and disrupted and who am I to trust them to work again in this new disrupted form? If I'm honest I'm really frightened. Compared to learning to walk again after my back this feels terrifying. People talk of never walking down stairs normally again, of never being able to walk barefoot, or on sand, on uneven ground or in heels. It all terrifies me. Heels I can live without, but the reasons why I'm not sure I can live with.
I know I'll do everything I have to in order to make my foot and leg remember what it has to do, to trust my weight to it again, to convince my head it is okay. I know that I'll put the time in, but it terrifies me that I have to. It scares me that something I took for granted for my whole life will now be a conscious thing, and that one day I'll be that walker in amongst all those feet in the park today, but I'll be the one with a grimace on my face, limping with a stick, whilst the children run past me and the toddlers discover their freedom. My freedom has gone. It feels that this is the way it will be. My carefree walking days are over. I may walk again, but I'll never walk 30 miles round a city without a care in the world for how far I've walked. I'll never be able to concentrate on the city rather than my mileage. I'll never be so mindless again of the sheer number of hours I've been on my feet. I will be the person feeling grateful for any sport rather than the person mindless of the time I do it. I will always walk with an awareness of it, rather than seeing it as freedom. From now til I die it will be a ball and chain round my neck when before it was my freedom. I associate walking so deeply with freedom! I never realised til it was taken away! It is not just freedom, but also my independence, and my sense of endurance. No matter how hard I found any sport I could always walk for hours. Until I fell asleep! I never stopped walking from anything other than sheer exhaustion. Even after I broke my spine, I still walked for hours, but before that I could have walked for a week if I hadn't needed to sleep.
Tomorrow I go back to hospital. I'm literally excited to get this plaster off. I find it hard to explain the sheer claustrophobia that you feel when one of your limbs is locked away from you. I can't wait to get the air to my skin, to feel my leg again, to stretch my foot out, to see if there is any movement in my new ankle, to see where my low point is and begin building on it. I'll be at rock bottom in terms of recovery and it can only get better from here. I hope. I know it could get worse too. I have to believe it will get better. I have to believe that one day I'll walk on it without being completely aware of it or in pain from each step. I have to believe these things or else I will struggle to put in the hours I know are necessary to give my walking the best chance. I think back to 7 weeks ago tonight. When I trail ran up a hill in Snowdonia. Stopping to curse my breathing on hills. Stopping to take photos of the view of Snowdonia. I left my tent lid off, fell asleep looking at the moon and the stars over Snowdon, and at 4 am I scrambled out of my tent to get it back on before a massive downpour, literally running round my tent to get the lid on quickly. I can't believe the last carefree steps I ever took were to the edge of a sharp slate ledge in a disused quarry, the last step I took was leaving the ground for a climb that was never meant to be one I would always remember. I remember looking down at my legs and noticing they were shaking with the strain, that my toes were balanced on nothing and I knew I had to make a move or else I would fall anyway. I remember all this with such clarity, though never knew at the time that these would be the last times I ever used my left leg without conscious thought or pain. I am terrified that they literally will become this. I am frightened that all my existing days will be marked with pain or a limp or both. And whilst you might think I'm jumping the gun thinking all this now whilst I'm still non weight bearing and in plaster, of course I am, but who can blame me. I actually feel like my body doesn't remember how to move any more. That my legs can't remember how to walk, my feet no longer remember what to do and my ankle simply won't move how it used to. These thoughts have been with me for weeks, since I first started to realise how bad this injury is and how much more I have to go til I'll be able to find out if I will be okay.
Because here is the thing about walking. I've been walking since I was a toddler. I don't remember learning to walk, but like all babies, I was born with an inherent and subconscious urge to walk. It was natural to do it. No-one had to put me upright and make me realise I too could walk, I wanted to do it and managed it like nearly all toddlers do. From the moment I walked I never thought twice about walking. I just got better at it. I took it for granted. It provided me with freedom. As a teenager it meant I could escape. As an adult it meant I was self propelled no matter where I was. I could walk for 30 miles in Bangkok, 8 hours in Tokyo, run a half marathon in Cologne, up a volcano in Chile and scale a glacier on my feet in the Alps. Walking = freedom. And it also equals a basic human "right"that I've always taken for granted. Even when I broke my back! I couldn't walk for 3 weeks. I remember well those three weeks when I couldn't walk! I felt so trapped and awful. I remember learning to walk, how weird it felt and how uncomfortable. But my legs knew what to do even if my back and torso felt entirely different. And over time my legs grew strong again and carried me great distances, and when my back ached my legs just kept going. Left right left right. I remember the mantra on the Himalayan trek. My back would screech at me in pain but my legs just kept going. Left right left right. One step at a time. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And I never analysed what my feet were doing. They just did it!
And now.
I don't trust my feet at all. Or my legs. I haven't walked in 7 weeks. I can't remember how it feels to walk. Now I even crutch in my sleep. I literally have nightmares that I put my weight on my broken leg and collapse into broken heaps. I feel like my leg doesn't belong to me any more. That somehow it is an illusion, like I'm dragging a dead weight around with me. The nerves, muscles, tendons and ligaments have all frozen and gone to sleep. I feel like not only will my left leg not work, but I don't even trust that my right leg will. It is the first time since I was less than a year old that I've not walked for this long and it frightens me what my legs will do next. Or won't do. I have an innate and immense fear that my left ankle will never work again. that I'll have to analyse how to take a step. Work on every single mechanism of taking a step that before I just took for granted and that was completely natural to learn. As a toddler I never analysed my gait like I'll have to now. After 7 weeks in plaster my ankle has seized up. My leg is weaker than it has been at any time in my entire life apart from when I was a newborn baby. This to me is terrifying. The muscles of my calf that poked out of the top of my cast have turned to mush - to literally skin and flab. There is no muscle left. My leg is caked in metal. The bones are weak. My ankle is broken up and reconstructed. The cartilage is broken too. The gaps between my leg and my foot are interrupted and disrupted and who am I to trust them to work again in this new disrupted form? If I'm honest I'm really frightened. Compared to learning to walk again after my back this feels terrifying. People talk of never walking down stairs normally again, of never being able to walk barefoot, or on sand, on uneven ground or in heels. It all terrifies me. Heels I can live without, but the reasons why I'm not sure I can live with.
I know I'll do everything I have to in order to make my foot and leg remember what it has to do, to trust my weight to it again, to convince my head it is okay. I know that I'll put the time in, but it terrifies me that I have to. It scares me that something I took for granted for my whole life will now be a conscious thing, and that one day I'll be that walker in amongst all those feet in the park today, but I'll be the one with a grimace on my face, limping with a stick, whilst the children run past me and the toddlers discover their freedom. My freedom has gone. It feels that this is the way it will be. My carefree walking days are over. I may walk again, but I'll never walk 30 miles round a city without a care in the world for how far I've walked. I'll never be able to concentrate on the city rather than my mileage. I'll never be so mindless again of the sheer number of hours I've been on my feet. I will be the person feeling grateful for any sport rather than the person mindless of the time I do it. I will always walk with an awareness of it, rather than seeing it as freedom. From now til I die it will be a ball and chain round my neck when before it was my freedom. I associate walking so deeply with freedom! I never realised til it was taken away! It is not just freedom, but also my independence, and my sense of endurance. No matter how hard I found any sport I could always walk for hours. Until I fell asleep! I never stopped walking from anything other than sheer exhaustion. Even after I broke my spine, I still walked for hours, but before that I could have walked for a week if I hadn't needed to sleep.
Tomorrow I go back to hospital. I'm literally excited to get this plaster off. I find it hard to explain the sheer claustrophobia that you feel when one of your limbs is locked away from you. I can't wait to get the air to my skin, to feel my leg again, to stretch my foot out, to see if there is any movement in my new ankle, to see where my low point is and begin building on it. I'll be at rock bottom in terms of recovery and it can only get better from here. I hope. I know it could get worse too. I have to believe it will get better. I have to believe that one day I'll walk on it without being completely aware of it or in pain from each step. I have to believe these things or else I will struggle to put in the hours I know are necessary to give my walking the best chance. I think back to 7 weeks ago tonight. When I trail ran up a hill in Snowdonia. Stopping to curse my breathing on hills. Stopping to take photos of the view of Snowdonia. I left my tent lid off, fell asleep looking at the moon and the stars over Snowdon, and at 4 am I scrambled out of my tent to get it back on before a massive downpour, literally running round my tent to get the lid on quickly. I can't believe the last carefree steps I ever took were to the edge of a sharp slate ledge in a disused quarry, the last step I took was leaving the ground for a climb that was never meant to be one I would always remember. I remember looking down at my legs and noticing they were shaking with the strain, that my toes were balanced on nothing and I knew I had to make a move or else I would fall anyway. I remember all this with such clarity, though never knew at the time that these would be the last times I ever used my left leg without conscious thought or pain. I am terrified that they literally will become this. I am frightened that all my existing days will be marked with pain or a limp or both. And whilst you might think I'm jumping the gun thinking all this now whilst I'm still non weight bearing and in plaster, of course I am, but who can blame me. I actually feel like my body doesn't remember how to move any more. That my legs can't remember how to walk, my feet no longer remember what to do and my ankle simply won't move how it used to. These thoughts have been with me for weeks, since I first started to realise how bad this injury is and how much more I have to go til I'll be able to find out if I will be okay.
Thursday, 20 September 2018
The power of positive mental imaging
I'm reading a book at the moment called Mutant Message Down Under, by Marlo Morgan. It was recommended to me when I was in Canada, and seemed to fit very well with where I was in my life at that time, so I bought it, but as it happens only just got round to reading it. It probably will have more impact reading it at this time, as I'm no longer feeling quite so sure of anything as I was 6 months ago.
I just read a chapter on healing. I wasn't expecting it to be a book on healing. But this was incredibly thought provoking. In the book, an Aboriginal tribe are walking. A man falls 20 ft and breaks his leg - an open, dislocated fracture in the tibia. And the two healers in the tribe talk to the bone. They sing to it. They float their hands over it. They somehow manipulate the bone back into place. They then use blood clots collected from menstrual blood (yes - eek) and dried into a paste to cover the wound, and the whole tribe take it in turns to care for the man that night. The next day he gets up and walk, and appears to have no pain. Yes an incredible story. I haven't yet worked out what elements of this book are true. But who cares. The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about the power of the human body in healing itself. How the healers don't believe they "heal" anything, they only talk to the bone so it knows what to do. It has had decades of knowing what to do. The body knows what to do to heal, and so it will, it just needs the right encouragement. The person needs to believe they can heal it themselves. They are open to the healing, the healing is instant, just as the injury was, but it needs belief to happen. The tribe believe that how you feel emotionally about things is what matters. They believe in a full recovery. And there is no doubt in their mind this is what will happen.
This certainly turns modern medicine on its head. Our doctors, maybe terrified of promising anything and being sued, don't tell us not to worry and we'll recover. They tell us the things that may change in our lives. And because they do it every day I think they forget how these mind-blowing bits of information can change the way a patient's brain is accepting their situation, and can literally send a person spiralling into a negative cycle. In my case anyway. I think about me in hospital listening to all these doubts these professionals are putting into my head. How they warn me of all the potential complications. You might have to use a walking stick for the rest of your life, they told me on day 1. Those two Indian docs who seemed so excited to have seen their first pilon fracture. Then there was the "significant loss of function". That it is rare and difficult to treat. These words stick with you. You can't lose them once you hear them. They don't know I guess that this is not helpful to me. That although they have to tell me these things, I don't find it helpful nor positive to know potentially bad things that might happen to my ankle. This doesn't make me grateful to have anything rather than nothing, instead it makes me terrified that I now have a negative image of my life in my head. I know, from my past experience with my spine, that this is not how I recover. I NEED to believe that I'll make a FULL recovery. I don't need to know that I might not. How do they know anyway? No-one can know. Twelve weeks after I broke my back I was told that I might never be able to sit for more than 20 minutes without significant pain. Or at all. That after 20 mins I'd need to stand up to stretch out. Completely not feasible in a concert. Take a Mahler Symphony and imagine not being able to sit for 20 minutes. I remember crying the whole way back from hospital at the implication that I wouldn't be able to do my dream job. Three years later I have no trouble sitting at all. My back isn't perfect, no way, and it does ache, but sitting isn't the major factor, and it certainly isn't like I imagined it to be on that sorry journey home 3 years ago.
Positive Mental Imaging. Positive Visualisation. I've read loads of stuff about this for performing, both in my job and also in climbing. The idea that you imagine yourself doing something well before you do it. You actually literally visualise yourself doing it well, to put the pattern in your mind before your body physically does it. I've done it with performances, literally playing pieces through entirely in my mind, and I've also done it with climbing, climbing completely a route before I physically touch it. It works. To an extent. It's a technique. It takes practice.
So I google Positive Mental Imaging in Recovery. And guess what, there is heaps of information on it. Just like with placebo drugs, crazy stories of people getting better because they truly believe they will. And I know the power of positive thinking. I really do. And I also understand how the idea of control can help us do amazing things, like that PCA I had with morphine in it after I broke my back that had been unplugged, but I kept pressing it and believing that the morphine was helping me. So I get that. I get the power of it. But I don't think we can truly understand the power of the mind at all. I mean can you really heal bones and joints better if you believe you can. Could I actually grow back cartilage if I think about it hard enough? I just read that if just one person heals from an un-healable condition then it is after all possible. They just don't understand it. And there is so much more to be understood about this. In all these stats there are always exceptions. And maybe I just truly have to believe that I'll do all these things I want to again, and that if I believe enough I'll be the exception to all those damning stats.
I just read a chapter on healing. I wasn't expecting it to be a book on healing. But this was incredibly thought provoking. In the book, an Aboriginal tribe are walking. A man falls 20 ft and breaks his leg - an open, dislocated fracture in the tibia. And the two healers in the tribe talk to the bone. They sing to it. They float their hands over it. They somehow manipulate the bone back into place. They then use blood clots collected from menstrual blood (yes - eek) and dried into a paste to cover the wound, and the whole tribe take it in turns to care for the man that night. The next day he gets up and walk, and appears to have no pain. Yes an incredible story. I haven't yet worked out what elements of this book are true. But who cares. The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about the power of the human body in healing itself. How the healers don't believe they "heal" anything, they only talk to the bone so it knows what to do. It has had decades of knowing what to do. The body knows what to do to heal, and so it will, it just needs the right encouragement. The person needs to believe they can heal it themselves. They are open to the healing, the healing is instant, just as the injury was, but it needs belief to happen. The tribe believe that how you feel emotionally about things is what matters. They believe in a full recovery. And there is no doubt in their mind this is what will happen.
This certainly turns modern medicine on its head. Our doctors, maybe terrified of promising anything and being sued, don't tell us not to worry and we'll recover. They tell us the things that may change in our lives. And because they do it every day I think they forget how these mind-blowing bits of information can change the way a patient's brain is accepting their situation, and can literally send a person spiralling into a negative cycle. In my case anyway. I think about me in hospital listening to all these doubts these professionals are putting into my head. How they warn me of all the potential complications. You might have to use a walking stick for the rest of your life, they told me on day 1. Those two Indian docs who seemed so excited to have seen their first pilon fracture. Then there was the "significant loss of function". That it is rare and difficult to treat. These words stick with you. You can't lose them once you hear them. They don't know I guess that this is not helpful to me. That although they have to tell me these things, I don't find it helpful nor positive to know potentially bad things that might happen to my ankle. This doesn't make me grateful to have anything rather than nothing, instead it makes me terrified that I now have a negative image of my life in my head. I know, from my past experience with my spine, that this is not how I recover. I NEED to believe that I'll make a FULL recovery. I don't need to know that I might not. How do they know anyway? No-one can know. Twelve weeks after I broke my back I was told that I might never be able to sit for more than 20 minutes without significant pain. Or at all. That after 20 mins I'd need to stand up to stretch out. Completely not feasible in a concert. Take a Mahler Symphony and imagine not being able to sit for 20 minutes. I remember crying the whole way back from hospital at the implication that I wouldn't be able to do my dream job. Three years later I have no trouble sitting at all. My back isn't perfect, no way, and it does ache, but sitting isn't the major factor, and it certainly isn't like I imagined it to be on that sorry journey home 3 years ago.
Positive Mental Imaging. Positive Visualisation. I've read loads of stuff about this for performing, both in my job and also in climbing. The idea that you imagine yourself doing something well before you do it. You actually literally visualise yourself doing it well, to put the pattern in your mind before your body physically does it. I've done it with performances, literally playing pieces through entirely in my mind, and I've also done it with climbing, climbing completely a route before I physically touch it. It works. To an extent. It's a technique. It takes practice.
So I google Positive Mental Imaging in Recovery. And guess what, there is heaps of information on it. Just like with placebo drugs, crazy stories of people getting better because they truly believe they will. And I know the power of positive thinking. I really do. And I also understand how the idea of control can help us do amazing things, like that PCA I had with morphine in it after I broke my back that had been unplugged, but I kept pressing it and believing that the morphine was helping me. So I get that. I get the power of it. But I don't think we can truly understand the power of the mind at all. I mean can you really heal bones and joints better if you believe you can. Could I actually grow back cartilage if I think about it hard enough? I just read that if just one person heals from an un-healable condition then it is after all possible. They just don't understand it. And there is so much more to be understood about this. In all these stats there are always exceptions. And maybe I just truly have to believe that I'll do all these things I want to again, and that if I believe enough I'll be the exception to all those damning stats.
Wednesday, 12 September 2018
The Best Year Part 3
So it is the end of December 2017. I'd been back in the UK not 24 hours and had devised a micro adventure. Alice and I drove to Snowdonia at 5pm on New Year's Eve - a plan we literally put together an hour before. We stayed at PyB and partied there til 2018, then we got up and tried to climb Snowdon. We had to turn back, but it didn't matter. The weather was awful and it was too icy to do without crampons. Instead we went to my favourite pub in Wales, (Pen y Grwyd) and drank mulled wine in front of a roaring fire. I was excited about 2018. I was going into it in such a good place. I was so fired up from Thailand. I felt fit and healthy, my back felt good, I was about to go to Canada for two months, and everything was fucking brilliant. I had had the best time in 2017, with so many little camping trips, wild camping, climbing, trail running, adventures, cycling, everything was so good. I knew that 2018 would be more of the same. Even better. I had big plans. I wanted to do lots of things. I had a list. I was motivated and energised.
A few days later I left for Canada. In Banff I made friends with my viola again, but two other things defined my time in Banff.
On the first morning I got up at 5 and hiked up Tunnel Mountain in the dark. It was absolutely freezing, and there had been a lot of fresh snow. It glistened under my head torch. I hoped I could remember the way. Miraculously I did. I jumped at every single noise in the snow, the wildlife love this time of day! The moon was still visible, so were the stars. There was no-one else around. The lights from the Banff Centre glistened in the distance as I climbed higher and higher. My nose was cold, my feet crunched the fresh snow, the air felt crisp and delicious, and the trees bowed down before me, weighed down by snow. At the top the sky had started to turn a pale pink and the town of Banff twinkled away as lights lit up the buildings. I looked down the Bow Valley and felt so excited to be back. Moved to tears really. I love this view. I love this place. I love these mountains. That view inspires me so much, has done since I first saw it 10 years ago. I felt so happy to be back.These mountains - I love this valley. And I owned it in that moment. I was the only one up there. I stayed there til the sun was risen, the bright streams from the early morning sun hitting the mountains and turning their dark shadows into golden rocks.
After this I went up Tunnel Mountain almost every morning, running it rather than hiking it. I couldn't run the whole way up, yet, but this was my challenge and each day I tried to run more of those ascending zig zags. I always ran down - I love running down hills. Definitely my favourite way to get down a mountain. In the 6 weeks I was in Banff I clocked up more than 100 miles running, with an ascent the height of Everest. I ran in temperatures as low as -30C. I was hardcore! I ran in a buff, with a hat and I bought thermal leggings. I felt like I belonged in the Banff trail running fraternity! My Strava even said that I lived in Banff! I made trail running friends, I saw the same people all the time. I loved it and quickly started making trail running plans for other mountains.
The other thing that happened in Banff is that I went to town on physio for my back. With the help of my wonderful friend Elizabeth, who I first met working as a massage therapist in Banff, I analysed my posture, my body, how I play my viola and everything to do with my back and I WORKED and WORKED on it. For the first time in 3 years I beat my spine. The pain when I play went away. I did it. I never thought it would be possible. I worked on my posture so hard. I changed how I play. I lifted my viola more. But it brought with it a freedom. I felt I could move with phrases. So amazingly freeing to be able to do that. I was so happy. And I had the time to do it! Not just that, I worked at my handstands too. I felt this time Banff was as much about reconnecting with my body as with my viola. It was also of course about reconnecting with my soul.
Whilst in Banff I also performed the Bach Chaconne for the first time since before my spinal accident. It was a piece that I first started learning in Banff in 2008, but it took me until 2015 to perform it. I literally performed it a few weeks before my accident and once I'd broken my spine I simply didn't have the stamina to get through it. So it was kind of monumental to perform it again, let alone here in Banff, where my journey actually began 10 years ago.
So revisiting Banff and undertaking a 6 week artist residency was as good as I had hoped, if not better. I had time to let my mind and my creativity breath, and I didn't just practise, I got fit, I ran, I had tons of fresh air - mountain air, I skied, I wrote, I composed, I even drew pictures. I read books and stories. I had time to just be. That was amazing.
After Banff I spent a bit of time touring round Canada. I visited Emma, an old BBC Phil friend in Vancouver, where we built huge snowmen with her kids, went on hikes up Cyprus Hill and out for lovely dinners, and then I flew to Toronto where I transferred to Stratford, the CANADIAN one. Here I stayed with my lovely friend Dave, Dave from the TMB, who made me laugh all the time, who I talked to when we hiked and laughed with over beers. I was so fond of Dave. We had a great time. We visited the Niagara Falls, which honestly I was ready to be disappointed at, but I was absolutely BLOWN away by. I hadn't expected them to be quite so staggering. We visited microbreweries, we ran, we hiked and we simply had a great time hanging out in the lovely coffee shops in Stratford. Stratford is a wonderfully pretty town, with a Shakespeare festival to rival our Stratford's, black swans, a music festival, even a River Avon and so much more.
My Canadian trip complete I returned to UK on a massive high. I wasn't around for long, a week or two before a substantial European tour with CBSO, which was wonderful - nice places, Vienna, Budapest, Heidelberg, amongst others. I fitted in 10 mile trail runs, and lapped up the sunshine. I have worked almost non-stop since that tour. However, I've fitted in some amazing climbing (lovely multi pitches with Rebecca and Dan), camping, hiking, tons of cycling, running (until I twisted my knee on a 10 mile run in Stanage in May). The weather this year could not have been better. During the long heat wave of 2018 I had some of the best times of my life. I dated a wonderful man, who brightened my days and made me so happy. I climbed. I cycled. I camped. My life couldn't have been better. My balance of play and work was fantastic. I was enjoying my playing and my work like never before. I'd achieved such a lot in a year. My goal for this year was to push my climbing grade. I did that, but as we all know, at the cost of my beloved and precious ankle, and possibly at the cost of future active lifestyle (only time will tell). I also took more training, climbing, rigging and was planning on getting my quals this year.
The Best Year had more to go.... I had a place in the Manchester Half Marathon. I was going to do my ML training in the summer. I had Chamonix plans. I had more climbing plans. I wanted to trail run the Welsh 15. I had more wild camping to do. The day before my accident I went wild swimming in a river, ran my first trail run in a few months (my knee felt good - it was game on), camped without the fly sheet on my tent so I slept my last night with a healthy ankle under the stars, with a lovely bright moon and a view of Snowdon. Just before I fell I achieved my 2018 goal of pushing my climbing grade. And I didn't just push it a bit, I PUSHED IT massively, onsighting and leading my first E2, a grade I could only have dreamt of when I broke my back.
My fall the same afternoon brought THE BEST YEAR to an abrupt close. As if to follow suit, the weather cracked the next week, while I was in surgery the sunny heatwave drew to a close and it feels like Autumn started then. The wonderful man walked out of my life at the very worst time. It has been hard to stay positive in the past 5 weeks since my accident. It feels like everything that was good has gone.
It has, for now. Some won't come back. Life will never be the same. It is such a mirror of 2015. The week before I broke my spine I wrote how my life was pretty near damn perfect for the first time since Andy died, and then I broke my spine. Almost like I saw it coming when I wrote the "my life is so perfect right now" post. My life never did go back to that pretty near damn perfect. But it did go a different way, and for so many different reasons I was happy again in 2018. I need to remember this. First, I have a long, hard road ahead that I wasn't expecting to go down. I have to learn to walk again. I have to pray for no complications (common with this injury), no infections, no hardware problems, I have to pray the traumatic arthritis holds out for several years yet, I have to work my butt off to simply achieve things I took for granted a few weeks ago, walking down the stairs, walking unaided, managing forest trails, cycling. I can't think about climbing. That hobby I worked so hard to get back to. Those head games I worked so hard on, 3 years of gentle massaging of my brain about falls trashed in one go. I don't know if my head will let me climb again. I certainly have no drive for it right now. I do want to run again though. This seems so important to me right now. Maybe because there is barely anyone I've found with this injury that manages it. I don't see it as a challenge to prove them wrong, I feel deflated by the idea of it not being possible, but I am in denial when people imply it may not be. I'm scared of the pain. I'd be lying if I didn't say it. I'm good at pain. I manage pain every day in my back. People don't realise because I made a decision early on never to talk about it. If you ignore it you can eventually con your brain that it isn't happening. I have techniques to deal with it. I've developed powerful brain things that can deal with it. I'm pretty pleased with my super powers in that one. But all this said, this isn't the same as the ankle pain I'm expecting. Right now my leg is doing okay. But there is no weight on it. Then the trouble starts. The poor cartilage that is damaged has its work cut out. And without cartilage life can be pretty difficult. The pain can be debilitating. And the mechanics of my ankle is so different. What will my life look like in a year? In two? In three? Will I ever again have a year to rival THE BEST YEAR?
A few days later I left for Canada. In Banff I made friends with my viola again, but two other things defined my time in Banff.
Sunrise on Tunnel Mountain - my first morning back in Banff
After this I went up Tunnel Mountain almost every morning, running it rather than hiking it. I couldn't run the whole way up, yet, but this was my challenge and each day I tried to run more of those ascending zig zags. I always ran down - I love running down hills. Definitely my favourite way to get down a mountain. In the 6 weeks I was in Banff I clocked up more than 100 miles running, with an ascent the height of Everest. I ran in temperatures as low as -30C. I was hardcore! I ran in a buff, with a hat and I bought thermal leggings. I felt like I belonged in the Banff trail running fraternity! My Strava even said that I lived in Banff! I made trail running friends, I saw the same people all the time. I loved it and quickly started making trail running plans for other mountains.
The other thing that happened in Banff is that I went to town on physio for my back. With the help of my wonderful friend Elizabeth, who I first met working as a massage therapist in Banff, I analysed my posture, my body, how I play my viola and everything to do with my back and I WORKED and WORKED on it. For the first time in 3 years I beat my spine. The pain when I play went away. I did it. I never thought it would be possible. I worked on my posture so hard. I changed how I play. I lifted my viola more. But it brought with it a freedom. I felt I could move with phrases. So amazingly freeing to be able to do that. I was so happy. And I had the time to do it! Not just that, I worked at my handstands too. I felt this time Banff was as much about reconnecting with my body as with my viola. It was also of course about reconnecting with my soul.
Whilst in Banff I also performed the Bach Chaconne for the first time since before my spinal accident. It was a piece that I first started learning in Banff in 2008, but it took me until 2015 to perform it. I literally performed it a few weeks before my accident and once I'd broken my spine I simply didn't have the stamina to get through it. So it was kind of monumental to perform it again, let alone here in Banff, where my journey actually began 10 years ago.
So revisiting Banff and undertaking a 6 week artist residency was as good as I had hoped, if not better. I had time to let my mind and my creativity breath, and I didn't just practise, I got fit, I ran, I had tons of fresh air - mountain air, I skied, I wrote, I composed, I even drew pictures. I read books and stories. I had time to just be. That was amazing.
After Banff I spent a bit of time touring round Canada. I visited Emma, an old BBC Phil friend in Vancouver, where we built huge snowmen with her kids, went on hikes up Cyprus Hill and out for lovely dinners, and then I flew to Toronto where I transferred to Stratford, the CANADIAN one. Here I stayed with my lovely friend Dave, Dave from the TMB, who made me laugh all the time, who I talked to when we hiked and laughed with over beers. I was so fond of Dave. We had a great time. We visited the Niagara Falls, which honestly I was ready to be disappointed at, but I was absolutely BLOWN away by. I hadn't expected them to be quite so staggering. We visited microbreweries, we ran, we hiked and we simply had a great time hanging out in the lovely coffee shops in Stratford. Stratford is a wonderfully pretty town, with a Shakespeare festival to rival our Stratford's, black swans, a music festival, even a River Avon and so much more.
My Canadian trip complete I returned to UK on a massive high. I wasn't around for long, a week or two before a substantial European tour with CBSO, which was wonderful - nice places, Vienna, Budapest, Heidelberg, amongst others. I fitted in 10 mile trail runs, and lapped up the sunshine. I have worked almost non-stop since that tour. However, I've fitted in some amazing climbing (lovely multi pitches with Rebecca and Dan), camping, hiking, tons of cycling, running (until I twisted my knee on a 10 mile run in Stanage in May). The weather this year could not have been better. During the long heat wave of 2018 I had some of the best times of my life. I dated a wonderful man, who brightened my days and made me so happy. I climbed. I cycled. I camped. My life couldn't have been better. My balance of play and work was fantastic. I was enjoying my playing and my work like never before. I'd achieved such a lot in a year. My goal for this year was to push my climbing grade. I did that, but as we all know, at the cost of my beloved and precious ankle, and possibly at the cost of future active lifestyle (only time will tell). I also took more training, climbing, rigging and was planning on getting my quals this year.
The Best Year had more to go.... I had a place in the Manchester Half Marathon. I was going to do my ML training in the summer. I had Chamonix plans. I had more climbing plans. I wanted to trail run the Welsh 15. I had more wild camping to do. The day before my accident I went wild swimming in a river, ran my first trail run in a few months (my knee felt good - it was game on), camped without the fly sheet on my tent so I slept my last night with a healthy ankle under the stars, with a lovely bright moon and a view of Snowdon. Just before I fell I achieved my 2018 goal of pushing my climbing grade. And I didn't just push it a bit, I PUSHED IT massively, onsighting and leading my first E2, a grade I could only have dreamt of when I broke my back.
My fall the same afternoon brought THE BEST YEAR to an abrupt close. As if to follow suit, the weather cracked the next week, while I was in surgery the sunny heatwave drew to a close and it feels like Autumn started then. The wonderful man walked out of my life at the very worst time. It has been hard to stay positive in the past 5 weeks since my accident. It feels like everything that was good has gone.
It has, for now. Some won't come back. Life will never be the same. It is such a mirror of 2015. The week before I broke my spine I wrote how my life was pretty near damn perfect for the first time since Andy died, and then I broke my spine. Almost like I saw it coming when I wrote the "my life is so perfect right now" post. My life never did go back to that pretty near damn perfect. But it did go a different way, and for so many different reasons I was happy again in 2018. I need to remember this. First, I have a long, hard road ahead that I wasn't expecting to go down. I have to learn to walk again. I have to pray for no complications (common with this injury), no infections, no hardware problems, I have to pray the traumatic arthritis holds out for several years yet, I have to work my butt off to simply achieve things I took for granted a few weeks ago, walking down the stairs, walking unaided, managing forest trails, cycling. I can't think about climbing. That hobby I worked so hard to get back to. Those head games I worked so hard on, 3 years of gentle massaging of my brain about falls trashed in one go. I don't know if my head will let me climb again. I certainly have no drive for it right now. I do want to run again though. This seems so important to me right now. Maybe because there is barely anyone I've found with this injury that manages it. I don't see it as a challenge to prove them wrong, I feel deflated by the idea of it not being possible, but I am in denial when people imply it may not be. I'm scared of the pain. I'd be lying if I didn't say it. I'm good at pain. I manage pain every day in my back. People don't realise because I made a decision early on never to talk about it. If you ignore it you can eventually con your brain that it isn't happening. I have techniques to deal with it. I've developed powerful brain things that can deal with it. I'm pretty pleased with my super powers in that one. But all this said, this isn't the same as the ankle pain I'm expecting. Right now my leg is doing okay. But there is no weight on it. Then the trouble starts. The poor cartilage that is damaged has its work cut out. And without cartilage life can be pretty difficult. The pain can be debilitating. And the mechanics of my ankle is so different. What will my life look like in a year? In two? In three? Will I ever again have a year to rival THE BEST YEAR?
Trail running in -30C
Sunrise inferno. Rundle Mountain from near the top of Tunnel
No filter needed. Bow Valley sunrises
The wonderful Elizabeth who sorted my back out for once and for all.
Another FREEZING trail run
Skiing in Lake Louise
At the top of Tunnel Mountain - one of my last trail runs in Banff
Bach and Mountains. So happy.
The hot tub at Banff's Moose Hotel
Sunset from my bedroom window in Banff on my last evening there
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