Injury life

It’s been four weeks now since my crash and rough ones too! The first week was definitely the hardest, with all the pain I was going through and being in  hospital  were my biggest challenges. I found myself feeling trapped by the walls of the ward and that there was no escape. Not to mention the “food” that there serve being not quite to my acquired taste really doesn’t make you feel very at home.

The synopsis of my injury was that I had dislocated my hip. A very nasty injury to do and also pretty much unheard of in young people. I do feel very lucky that I didn’t sustain any fractures at all. I was told that if my upper body had been in a more upright position on impact it would have been a different story. The likelihood  of enduring some serious trauma to my pelvis would have been high. That would have resulted in a much longer recovery time and lots of possible long-term consequences.

After a long eight days I was able to go home. I decided that It would be best to go back to my family home in East Sussex as I would be off the bike for a while. It would be the best place to start my recovery as I would still be needing some help in the first few weeks e.g. putting on my right sock ! The other reason to go there was that we had tracked down a great hip specialist at the local hospital so I was keen to be seen by him as that would be my best chance of a speedy and successful recovery.

I was lucky enough to be able to start physio there only a few days (thank you NHS) after leaving the hospital. I was very keen as a lot of the pains I have been having over these last few weeks are more in my muscles around the joint than the joint itself. This was due to the fact they have been totally over- stretched in all the wrong directions. Along with this, I have also been having some hydrotherapy as well. It’s all based in a waist high swimming pool and the idea is that because you are half submerged, this takes your weight and enables you to do different exercises to increase joint movement and muscle strength. Unfortunately apart from when I’m in the pool I have to use crutches to give the hip joint time to heal.  I have my next appointment at the end of the week so I am really, really hoping that I will be able to get off the crutches and hopefully able to start doing more work to get my hip strong again.  Back on the bike would be fantastic. Fingers crossed!