The Young Feller

A Little Further Down The Road To Recovery Physio continued, as did my home exercises, all very boring by now but had to be done in order to recover properly.  I did get various new home exercises every now and again as my progress developed but still, doing something every couple of hours, every single day, as you can imagine, would become boring quite quickly.  I was reducing the size of my bandage regularly, taking off the heavy strapping was good, it made me leg feel more lightweight and allowed more flexibility but I still had bandage on for now, just to prevent any damage from a possible knock or bang to my knee. One major difference I noticed, mainly at physio, was my balance.  It had dramatically deteriorated, literally to a point where standing on one leg was pretty difficult without tipping to one side.  This was quite strange as my balance has always been good, better than most really but now it was like it had been reset, my mind forgot how to ba...

Leaving Hospital, Being Lazy, Physio, Physio & More Physio It's the end of January, 2011, after a few days of walking around the hospital corridors, well I say walking, limping is more the appropriate description, I've had a couple of meetings with some physio's and I've been given my light exercises already to get things moving.  I am now able to leave my bed, the numbness has left my lower half but I'm still on a heavy dose of painkillers with the extra large bandage wrapped around my knee, as it would be for the foreseeable future.  Before I left I met Mr.Shah again, was given some clear instructions, the major one being that I made sure I did not bang or make any heavy contact on my knee as the knee cap along with the surrounding area was very sensitive and would be for a few months to come, due to the graft taken from the patellar aka knee cap.  Still to this day I haven't suffered a heavy bang to my knee although attempting to kneel down, as menti...

Leaving Hospital & Returning To Reality There was no escaping the fact this was the strangest I'd felt in my life.  I've never really been to hospital for anything, I'm a healthy guy and the worst I get (touch wood) is a cold every winter and that's down to my own decision of wearing shorts despite it being near zero temperatures.  The pain was non-existent for the first few days after the op as the numbness was still in effect but looking at my legs and not being able to move them was a really surreal feeling, the only way they would move is if I physically lifted them off the bed, something I hope I never have to experience again, despite it being "controlled medication".  The food was good, which may come as a surprise to some people but I guess having a Michelin star chef does help and this was one of the things I could look forward to as not much else kept me entertained, including Jeremy Kyle, Bargain Hunt & all the other terrible day tim...

ACL Reconstruction Takes Place From around November 2010 up until January 22nd 2011, I was basically in the gym on a daily basis, trying to maximise the size of my quads and put as much strength into my right leg as possible. This was a vital part of both the recovery and progress my leg would make after my 1st operation and prior to my 2nd one.  I could walk at around 4.5mph on a treadmill, up hill too, so that was quite challenging and made my legs ache a hell of a lot after not using them much over the past few weeks.  I resisted the temptation to run though, I think it brings to mind all the things when you were younger, you're told not to do something, so it makes you want it more, at that point I don't think I've ever wanted to run as much in my life, as strange as it might sound! As I got more into the spin classes and uphill walking etc, things became more frustrating as the progress seemed to slow down even though I was constantly working on it and mixing ...

Recovering And Living Life, As Such Physio started to interest me.  I was constantly learning how so many muscles and movements affected the mobility and strength that I could bring through my knee.  I had 2 A4 sides worth of exercises that had to be done every 2 hours, which you can imagine would become quite repetitive after a week or so but it was something that had to be done to get my knee back to it's original state and to keep my thighs working while my knee clearly wasn't.  You may think that a knee injury would only affect your knee but it changed so many things and the list would be as long as my arm if I was to post each and every noticeable difference on here, although most will eventually be mentioned in the next few blog posts anyway. One thing that it majorly affected was of course my mobility.  I was still on crutches but gradually relying on them less and less and it did take me a while to get used to them as i'd never used them prior to thi...

Under The Knife For The First Time November 6th 2010 I was up early, 5:30 am to be exact.  I had to be at the hospital by 6:30 am to get myself ready for an early morning operation.  A good 8 hour sleep was required as well as no food or drink within 8 hours of my check in but I don't usually eat breakfast anyway so this wasn't much of a problem, although I did struggle without a drink of any form!  I was given my own room along with the delightful gown and hat that you'll see in and around hospitals everywhere, oh, and the "paper" underwear, not quite your Calvin Klein's but I had no choice. Frequent visits from the nurses were about the only thing happening, an operation seemed years away but it came around quickly.  All the checks were done, then double checked, my mouth was about as dry as Gandhi's flip flop and I was basically just awaiting the shout.  My Mum & Dad went to pick up my brother, as I'd been told my operation wouldn...

Discovering My Fate MRI - Magnetic resonance imaging.  Medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualise internal structures of the body in detail. Image taken from ;- http://www.bmihealthcare.co.uk/consultant/consultantdetails?p_name=Vinod-Shah&p_id=43622 for illustration purposes only. October 18th 2010 I got the phone call over the weekend (you may notice the date skips from October 15th to October 18th) and I was due for my MRI scan this Monday morning.  Quicker than I expected, much quicker, but this was only a good thing.  As I became more realistic with my hopes, I was already training myself in a positive mindset, "the quicker I get diagnosed, the quicker I can recover, whatever it turns out to be".  I'd had an MRI scan before, as I mentioned earlier, I'd suffered a broken arm and wrist which also required a similar scan.  For those of you who haven't had an MRI scan or seen the machinery, it's pretty daunting.  The ...

48 Hours Later ACL - Anterior Cruciate Ligament (referred to as ACL throughout) PCL - Posterior Cruciate Ligament (referred to as PCL throughout) October 15th 2010 You may be thinking that I've missed out October 14th if you've been closely following the dates on each post.  The 14th had nothing interesting going on, it involved no University, just me sitting at home and trying to keep myself mobile around the house while constantly racking my brain to what I could possibly have done.  Down the years I paid only a little interest in specific footballing injuries as personally I'd been lucky.  I had only ever suffered one injury while playing football and this was the fracture and breaking of my arm and wrist, both in the same action, and yes, that was painful too, but the impact of that on my life is far less significant to the story you are part way through reading. I Googled each and every possible symptom, studied reports on footballers who had suffe...

No Pain, No Gain? Not Here...... October 13th 2010 After a restless nights sleep, I woke up to the familiar sound of my alarm with the thought of another day at University ahead of me.  I didn't mind Wednesday's, we had a relaxed timetable and the modules weren't too boring, therefore making it much easier to concentrate as it didn't put you asleep. But, something else was taking my attention that day.  When I attempted to throw my legs out of bed, I felt a stiffness in my right leg, being half asleep still I thought nothing of it and put my feet down on the floor, only then to realise that my knee, and the area surrounding it, was around 3 times it's normal size and still wouldn't allow me to bear any weight on my right leg, apart from the smallest amount on the tips of my toes.... A similar representation of how my knee looked in comparison to my other I had a shower, brushed my teeth, the usual morning routine, but something was different, ...

My Knee Injury - An Introduction October 12th 2010 For years I had played football 5 times a week, some times more.  It's always been a massive part of my life, I've enjoyed nothing more than playing it since I first started kicking a ball when I was a tiny person in this world, even watching Liverpool win trophies and singing loud on the Kop doesn't have the same effect as playing football myself does. Tuesday October 12th 2010. It was a normal day, I had University from 9am and everything was going fine and well, it was getting towards winter so it was quite chilly but wet and raining as usual in the North West but little did I know what training that night would bring and I had no idea how it was about to impact my life for the next few years and maybe forever.... 7pm training started, the same training I've been attending each Tuesday since I was 14.  Always played against older age groups since I was way younger and I enjoyed this training, hence m...