Healing Bones

One of this things that really surprises me, two and a half months after breaking my tib and fib- is how much effort if takes to re-grow bones. I need so much more sleep than I needed when my tib and fib were whole.

I suppose this catches me by surprise because as time goes on, I get stronger and more mobile and, the occasional slip aside- things continue to improve. But then at the same time, now that crutching is easier, I want to crutch further.

Sadly, too, I'm no longer the sleep machine that painkillers made me- so if I don't get enough sleep one night, it totals me until the next night I sleep well. I'm no longer capable of cheerfully snoozing the afternoon away.

Though slow, the process of recovery is full of improvement and new possibilities- so much so, that sometimes I forget that there's supposed to be something wrong, get excited, and have to catch up. Looking at the X-rays, the tibia at least is only really just beginning to hug the titanium and in many ways it's still very broken.

My concern at the moment is getting as crutch-independent as possible before the snow and ice begin. That, and getting back on a top-rope this week!

Stupid Rain, Stupid Floors

As I had no lectures on Tuesday, I'd decided to spend Monday night in Sheffield with Alistair. We talked about the fall in the wet and decided hopefully things would start hurting less soon.

On Tuesday afternoon I decided that, on the basis that I'd gone from taking no painkillers to a fair few, and couldn't weight bear, I quite fancied an x-ray.

So we popped to A&E for the evening at Northern General. Of course, we packed sweets knowing the wait in store (yes, there is a clearly emerging pattern of turning to sweets in times of distress. I have no regrets). They were quite happy to x-ray my leg; however our luck ended there.

The doctor had a look at the X-rays and took them to her senior, who looked at them and exclaimed 'Two MONTHS? That doesn't look like a two month old fracture! They said that they'd send a pigeon to Leeds who could organise a visit to fracture clinic within the next week, but warned me that pigeons sometimes get lost so I should chase it up.

So on Thursday afternoon, having spent all of Wednesday in a Tramadol-induced haze, I went to LGI. With a different friend this time, and different snacks.
A&E is a funny place. I'd only ever seen it from the ambulance side. But in the waiting room, it's just like being on a bus. Everyone seems so... normal. I mean, there's the odd person you can tell isn't quite OK, like the guy who held an oiled rag to his motorbike chain, thinking that if he ran the bike it would oil it so much faster, now holding that same rag stained red*. But some couples you can't even tell who it is. The anorexic girl and her nice-looking boyfriend, who are they actually here for? The two girls talking about 'real hair hair extensions' and their relative quality, are they just pretending to be OK or have they got the wrong place?

Leeds decided they'd send me to fracture clinic on Monday, and told me to just keep taking painkillers.

There was a very nice radiology student though. I liked him. Not as much as Alistair, obviously.

*Don't worry, he walked out with both hands, and even both thumbs. Minus a little bit. Plus a lot of gauze.

Déjà vu

Crutches...and rain...are a terrible mix. They seem to think, the University of Leeds, that a horrendous combination of rubber and lino floors are a great idea. Yes, maybe they last longer. Yes, I'm sure they clean better. But for anyone less than steady on their feet- or even in a rush- they're an absolute nightmare when wet. Think climbing shoes on snow.

I've nearly slipped plenty of times, and it's pretty scary. But today both crutches slipped in opposite directions leaving me to slam straight down onto the booted leg. Which was pretty shit.

Fortunately there's a massive titanium rod in it this time, so the déjà vu ended there. But aside from pain, it was incredibly frustrating. I'm so careful, I put so much effort into the physio, I try so hard to get everything right- and then this. If I'd done it fingerboarding, I'd never fingerboard until it was better. But I was walking between lectures. I can't not live until I don't need crutches.

Stupid rain, Stupid floors.

Top-Roping

I went for my first top-roping session today.

Checking I'd tied in properly...

I guess I'll start with fear. Was I scared? Not when I was climbing. I was very intimidated by the main wall at the foundry- but if I'm honest with myself it always makes me feel small! Had I not known my belayer so well, I might have been scared. But Ali's been my climbing partner longer than we've been going out. I knew he'd look out for me. The other thing was- I've never been hurt top-roping, and it's not much like bouldering!

The level of knee-bend achieved here is, if I say so myself, pretty amazing!

Although I wasn't scared I was, as I say, very intimidated. There was certainly some nervous chattering to myself as I embarked across the roof of the Foundry main wall. One thing it put into perspective was my psychological need to wear down turned shoes on steep indoor ground. The boot was so useless, that although my other shoe was a size too big, I found it would stand on almost anything.

This was optimistically taken before I realised that this
 wasn't a function available to my left leg
and just took it off the wall and pulled instead.

In many ways, it wasn't anything like climbing as I know it. The movement was totally different, I didn't know how to use my foot- because even though it can't do a huge amount, it could certainly have borne more of my weight than it did. But it was a good laugh, and I can only improve.

A more honest portrayal of my 'footwork'

I managed a rather nice pink and purple spotty jug route though ;)

For now, at least, top-roping will remain a game. I'm not ready for training with feet. But it's nice to be able to do something else.

Little Jumps, big leaps

How not to get fat and weak with a broken leg?

• Crutch half as far as you'd normally walk.
• Fingerboard.

That's pretty much it. I'm knackered most of the time from crutching and healing but somehow my life is working out just fine and I'm as happy as I've been since before I broke it. It's not because I'm being super-positive. There are some moments I just want to throw my crutches on the floor, stamp my right foot (well, hop) and cry. And indeed I do, more often than I'd care to let anyone see.

But just recently some little changes have been happening in my recovery that have put me on top of the world. First of all, I can feel myself putting more and more weight on my leg when I crutch. I stand on two feet without crutches now- which is SO much easier in so many ways. OK, so it's not 50/50 and I'm marooned, but it's a start. My triceps are more efficient and crutching is slightly easier*.

When I think about the day it happened too much, I'm able to really look at how far I've come. At how, incredibly after only two weeks after physio exercises, I'm now maybe 2 degrees off straightening my knee, not 15. There's a long way to go, but these changes happened at a time when I really, REALLY needed to see some improvement.

I've also been to a few lectures. Now, I'm not the most enthusiastic in a lecture. Don't get me wrong, I do care about my degree- but I don't ever really fancy a nice lecture. But I'm absolutely loving the normality. Going to the lectures gives me a buzz, it's a real shame it'll wear off in a couple of weeks! I suppose I'm cherry picking lectures too, on the basis that dragging myself up the hill to university 5 days a week is still too much for my triceps and/or leg.

This week's been a week of training. Shoulders were fairly insistent. Who am I to refuse them, the poor dears?

*Ah, crutching. It's fair to say that I've never hated an inanimate object as much as I hate those crutches. I hate them with a passion. Perhaps it's because they've come to symbolise everything I hate about having a broken leg. A loss of freedom, a tiring method of moving around, and the sodding untangling of arms every time I want to put them down. None of these suit someone as impatient as me. Mostly, it's because they're not as good as walking.

Chapter Five: Going it Alone

Today has been the hardest day since breaking my leg. You see, I can divide my recovery so far into four parts:

The floor of the climbing centre,
The hospital,
Alistair's parents' house in Ilkley and
Leeds with Alistair

Things have been hard, of course, at different points in those four stages. But I've never been alone. I've always been able to hold Ali's, or someone I love's, hand at the start and end of each day. And though I'm very lucky to have Alistair, I'm perhaps unlucky in the sense that in the four years we've been "going out" with each other, we've never yet had a chance to live together. We're both students working towards that end.
And what's so very hard about stage 5 is that at some point, Ali had to return to Sheffield to carry on with his own life, and I had to learn to reclaim my independence. It won't be the first time I've learned this- I suppose it was the same when I left home for the first time. But this time feels a good deal scarier.

So while people I know have said I've been brave, and done well- I haven't really. I haven't had to cope on my own and although I have friends, I will- for the first time since I broke my leg- have to completely run my own life. Now is when being brave starts.
And I think that doing that with a broken leg is probably the hardest thing I've ever found myself up against. I still feel so vulnerable, without complete physical health. And so isolated from the real world.

I know that in theory I could get on a train and see Alistair tonight. But we both know that in practice I can't. Because unless I wait until I'm fully mobile, which could be a while, it's not going to get easier to start on my own no matter how long I leave it.

It's not just not having Ali around to help that will be hard. I'll miss the opportunities having a car around gave me to get out of the house during the week to places that I just can't get to on crutches. I'll miss the swimming too. And of course, I'll miss living with the person I've wanted to live with for years now anyway.

I hope I can do it.

Physio

I saw a physio this week. She was brilliant- she said "So you fell off climbing, I gather you're a climber. So your goal is to get back climbing then?"

Yes! It is! Yay. She then took an extremely detailed set of notes about the injury before giving me some exercises to to to improve flexibility. By the end of the session my knee could be straightened to only 7° bent- at the start it had been 15°.

I've got my motivation to train back, and I'm thoroughly enjoying finger boarding. I've also tried swimming. As someone who normally hates indoor swimming as it's just not exciting enough for my attention span, I've found it awesome. It's very liberating to feel only a fraction of my body weight (my head and shoulders were above the water level thus I did still feel some weight, assuming an average human density of approximately that of water). I found that I can walk in the swimming pool which is great fun.

I'm slowly learning to walk putting about 10% of my body weight onto the foot. It's very different to crutching on only one foot- and of course, with my ankle being held at a fixed ankle taking a step is slightly contrived.

I'm missing climbing though, can't wait to get back!