Tupper #10

Injury update #3

After only attending the fracture clinic last week, it was a surprise to get my MRI appointment come through so quickly.

So it was back to the hospital....again, and a MRI scan to hopefully shed some more light on my ankle injury.

It was a long walk to the remote MRI unit at the hospital, but the cheery assistant who walked me to my destiny, told me amusing stories of how people who had not declared metal implants or body piercings literally got sucked up to the roof of the scan unit due to its strong magnetic forces!

MRI unit

Once I got settled in and was laying on the bed about to be sent into the giant tube of the MRI unit, I was given head phones that would play music to dull out the loud sounds the machine made. It reminded me of a game show where one of the contestants goes into the booth with headphones and music so the cant hear their partners answers!

I had been looking forward to this all day, a chance to be on my own in my little world away from the stresses of the modern world, and 25 minutes of rare 'me' time. I think everyone needs 'me' time. That's one of the reasons I run and one of the reasons I run mostly trails rather than roads.

One moment you're stuck in the office with phones ringing, emails, deadlines; the next in the middle of the woods without a soul around and everything stripped back to just the basics.

'Me' Time

I was told I must not move at all costs...so straight away,up appears the little devil on the shoulder egging you on to scratch that itch that's started to annoy you on your nose!

I managed to distract myself and focus on the music that was playing. A strange choice of dance music that wanted to get my toe tapping rather than relax me, and rather bizarrely it seemed to pick up a local pirate hip hop station with the DJ chatting to his mate...Bizarre!

Any way after my 'me time, I was told I now needed to wait until I was given an appointment from the specialist to review the scan.

Hopefully it wont be too long. The ankle does seem to slowly be improving, so its a case of upping the cycling next week along with introducing some swimming and then fingers crossed I'll be in good shape to start running again soon.

Injury update #2

Forgive me if I'm boring everyone with my injury updates but I figured it may be useful to others if they experience something similar.

If you're still with me...next instalment:

I returned to my second home Frimley Park hospital, for an appointment at the fracture clinic.

My second home at the moment

After the obligatory wait of around 45 minutes, I was finally seen by one of the consultants. After some pushing and pulling, I don't think this chap was any the wiser to what was happening with my ankle so he called his boss man in.

Again more pushing and pulling, but interestingly not much pain while this was going on. The big boss man then done, what must be his party trick...'the squeeze test'. He put his hand around my shin bone further up my leg and...squeezed! For the first time today I felt pain and a shooting sensation done to my ankle.

While the first chap was seeing me, big boss man had been looking at my X-ray from last Monday and had decided that what appeared to be the chipped piece of bone (see last post) was actually new bone that 7 weeks on had formed to heal the injury.

After the squeeze test, he now had a better picture, and possible damage to the point where the top of the ankle meets the interosseous membrane (a ligament which runs between the tibia and fibula, the two main bones in the lower leg).

It's possible that the bones have been pushed apart at this point.

Time for a few more X-rays on the ankle, the lower leg and the knee and some more blasts of radiation. I think the girl in the X-ray room today was the work experience girl that took my original X-ray all those weeks ago and who took the mystery photo that showed no damage to my ankle!

Not my real X-ray!

After returning back to the consultants and they had looked at my X-rays, they decided that the next step would be booking me in for a MRI scan and send me on to the foot and ankle specialist. The MRI scan would give a lot clearer picture of the ligament damage and the full picture of the injury.

Forgive me all you professionals out there if I've got any medical facts and names wrong. I think that's roughly what went on today.




The good news that came out of today is that I can carry on cycling and try some swimming, basically if it doesn't hurt I can do it. Sadly running hurts!

Until the next instalment, enjoy the sun and the long weekend and make sure you appreciate every run you do. I know I will WHEN I return.

Injury update

The injury saga continues…

 



 

 

Following Osteopath Helen’s advice, I headed back to A&E this morning to get another x-ray done on the ankle. Helen was convinced all was not right with the ankle bone, and did not want to do too much extensive Physio before we were 100% sure nothing sinister was going on.

 

Lo and behold, she was right! This time the X-ray showed a small piece of bone (see circled above) that had come away probably from the fall and the ligament damage. Although it could well be where I tried to run on it again a couple of weeks ago as the original X-ray which I saw this morning showed no bone damage.

 

It’s possible of course that I had a work experience Radiologist on the original day and they actually took a photo of my arm!!!

 

Anyway it is what it is now, and 7 weeks on, I can’t turn back time although I would be a lot further ahead with my rehab.

 

I need to go to the Fracture clinic on Friday for further assessment. All I can do now is rest till then and see where this takes me.

 

I can’t even start cross training till I have spoken to the consultants, so it’s another week lost in fitness.

 

On a positive note, I would like to thank all the Twitter running community who sent well-wishing tweets this morning. It was uplifting to have the support from you all.

 

This one from @StevieRun71 made me chuckle…

 

God gave us 2 legs not 2 wheels!

So I finally stopped moping around feeling sorry for myself with my ankle and decided to do some cross training and that meant getting out the dreaded bike!!!

My bike lives in the garage

People who know me or follow me on Twitter will know I absolutely hate cycling! I strongly believe God gave us two legs to run with and not two wheels!!!

With running, you only have to move yourself, cycling means moving yourself and a big chunk of metal at the same time!

I've had the same bike now for about 15 years, I don't like the bike, the bike doesn't like me, but we've been together so long that we put up with each other and occasionally go out with each other (sounds like marriage!)....(only joking wife!)

Physio Helen from Finefettle told me I could cycle for fitness as long as I stay flat so I don't have to go up any hills (fine by me!!!)

I went along the road for 4 miles then back on the canal path. It's the one time I prefer the Tarmac to the trails, nice and smooth and easier to cycle on. The canal path in contrast felt like every bone in my body was being shaken.



Fortunately I didn't come across many runners, I just couldn't look them in the eye...them thinking I'm a cyclist when I'm really a runner...I wanted to tell them out loud "I'm not doing this for fun"...."I'm a runner like you"....."I hate this, I don't want to be doing this!!!"

I came across an elderly couple on the canal path who gave me a look of disapproval as they had to move to the path side to let me through. I said "morning", they didn't reply... I bet they would of if I were running past them.

Anyway, I returned home from my epic journey relieved that the ordeal was over for today. I didn't feel that tired, like I hadn't done much. The only thing I seemed to get out of today was a sore butt!

Thank you for listening to my moan, but I had to get it off my chest and in the end I must remember what I'm doing this for...getting back to running and training for the Loch Ness Marathon.

Worse things happen at sea!

Do they really!

What can be worse to a runner than busting their ankle...that would never happen at sea would it!

I suppose the one exception is the lead character in Life of Pi, he didn't have a great life at sea....Oh and Jaws. That wasn't great for the characters at sea neither.

Anyway I digress.

6 weeks on from injuring my ankle (by jumping of a wall trying to rush to the start line of a race!) I finally done something I should have done 5 weeks ago...Go to see a Physio.

My ankle 6 weeks ago

I've now accepted I'm injured despite being in denial and trying to do some running last week. You can read all you want on the Internet about injuries and recovery, but until you are accessed by a professional then you have no idea if you are doing the right thing specific to you and how long you should rest for.

I now know I have maybe another 2 weeks to go.

I took myself along to the good people at FineFettle, a local clinic in Great Bookham. I follow them on Twitter and have also had the odd sports massage after local races that they attend.

The clinic was founded by Osteopath, Helen Bullen and it was Helen whom I had my appointment with (straight to top for me!)

Now this lady knows her bones and ligaments and within minutes (following a brief questionnaire) she was prodding, poking and moving my foot round before making her professional opinion of......."You've well and truly buggered that!"

Joking aside Helen then went to work on my ankle accessing the full extent of the damage, the diagnosis being 2 damaged anterior ligaments either side!

I appear to have managed to do both!!!

Next some massage to help drain some of the excess fluid that was still causing some swelling, and an introduction to some exercises to do over the next week.

Although I had been for an X-ray soon after my accident and nothing was picked up by the hospital, Helen suspected that I possibly could have had a hairline fracture that was missed from the X-ray. The reason being that my bone on the inside of my ankle is a lot bigger than the other foot which may mean I have bone that has grown to repair the damaged bone under.

I'm determined to stick to my rehab programme and hope by working hard I can get back on the trails before long. Even as I write this post I am doing my hot and cold treatment, cold peas to take the blood away from the injury then a hot water bottle to bring back new blood to help repair.

Although I'm gutted that I'm not able to run at present, at least now there is light at the end of the tunnel and a rough date to return thanks to Helen at Finefettle.

I'm thinking about hitting the pool tomorrow morning for some cross training and rehab....now what's that about worst things happen at sea!

Boston marathon 2013

Ever since the tragic news broke yesterday of events at the Boston Marathon, I have been following the story via the News on TV, radio and the Internet.

Never has a news story quite hit home like this one. This one is close to home, not in the respect of where I live but as part of the worlds running community.

The world is a lot smaller now through social media, I bet many of us follow or communicate with a runner that was taking part yesterday through Twitter or Facebook, something that would not have been possible 15 years ago.

That's how big and strong the running community is, and that is why it will over power this evil.

I'll never understand why incidents like this happen, but what I do know is that it makes the goodness in human kind get stronger. Look how much sympathy was shown last night through social networks, how brilliantly the Boston community dealt with dealing with the victims.

These people will never succeed, sure they can get some publicity, but in the end we all pull together and get through.

The running community across the world just got a whole lot stronger these last 24 hours.

As an idea, I tweeted this evening that all runners should change their profile pictures with something that represents Boston.

I changed mine to the picture below.

The image shows John A. Kelley completing his first Boston Marathon in 1935. Kelley holds the records for most Boston Marathons started – 61. He finished 58. He was also the only B.A.A. Club member to win the Boston Marathon. He ran his last full Boston Marathon in 1992. Photo by E. Morgan Savage via RunningPast.com