Loss of a Companion

Wohooo! 12 weeks have gone since I had my knee surgery! Today is the day I was allowed to ditch my knee brace. I wish I could have done it in Forrest Gump style, sprinting down the road with it disintegrating and falling off in pieces. Nah, I just woke up on Monday and went f*ck it, I'm not wearing it any more! Can't say I'm going to miss it, despite the fact it's given me so much support over that last few months.

It's been a while since my last update, life is getting busier again since I can do a bit more. Recently I have mainly been: partying, fishing, camping, working, physio-ing and court attending...

Camping it up at Loch Tummel

Knee Update

The last four weeks have been a little slow, unfortunately I feel a bit limited by the inflexible regime I'm on, but protecting the grafts is the #1 goal at this stage, so I can understand it. I've mainly been trying to improve my quad control with squats, 1-leg step-downs and leg extensions. The muscle is definitely getting stronger and more defined - not much increase in bulk, but that'll come once I'm allowed heavier weights.

Leg extensions have been with 1kg ankle weights - just stepped that up to 2kg and it feels great! Stairs are getting easier - up is a piece of piss, but going down still takes thought and effort.

Range of motion is progressing glacially! Still hovering around the 120° mark but I'm now allowed to use gentle pressure to increase the force; hopefully that'll get it moving.

Stability feels great - as long as all goes to plan, I think this knee op is going to be very successful! I've been on the static bike recently (my road bike on a turbo trainer) and it's nice to be able to do a little cardio! As off today I'm allowed to swim, front crawl only (which will be brutal as I've not done any in years) so that should at least let me get a bit of a work on!

It seems like now is the time when the amount of effort should correlate with the amount of improvement. Still not allowed to do much hamstring stuff, but it'll not be long.

Life Update

I can now talk about the undisclosed cause of my accident, wrecked knee and year of my life written-off...

Well, the bottom line is, I fell asleep at the wheel. I had been climbing up north on both the Saturday and Sunday I didn't quite make it to my parents house on the Sunday afternoon. 3 miles short.

It would be easy to think that with this year being such a shit-bag that I was pretty unlucky to be involved in such an accident. I'm not so sure. Yes, it's cost me a hell of a lot of money and I've missed out on a lot of things, but I consider that luck was firmly on my side!

No one else was hurt and I didn't die.

Two of my mates drove past the aftermath and commented "whoever was in that car must have come out in a body bag". It was only a matter of luck that I hit a bus and not a car, and that the bus was going very slowly and no-one was hurt. Luck stopped me hitting someone on the street. Luck. A roll of the dice. It makes me uncomfortable that I put so many unwitting people into a game of Russian Roulette.

I had to go and deal with the consequences a few weeks ago. Can't recommend court, it's not a nice experience, although, I doubt it's meant to be. Here's what the hacks had to say:

My fifteen minutes of infamy! Be careful out there folks...