March 23rd – D+34 The Long Walk To Freedom

“Thou shalt enlarge my steps under me: and my ankles shall not fail.” Day by day, I am rising, Lazarus like, to be reborn as a mediocre Sunday league footballer. Not bad for an agnostic. The progress over the last two weeks has been exceptionally pleasing. Probably not enough to cite the Bible and compare myself to a man resurrected by Jesus, but who cares?

I have now almost weaned myself off crutches altogether, allowing me to hobble short distances in my pressure boot. Just over a week ago, I found myself awkwardly using my left crutch to support my left ankle and using a kind of hopping gait which meant I only needed one crutch. This was made a lot simpler when I visited my physio, Regan, and she politely pointed out I was using the crutch on the wrong side. “Ah... of course” I muttered sheepishly.

Beyond recognising my alarming lack of common sense, I was given a number of exercises to do daily (with beautifully drawn diagrams*) to rebuild some basic strength in my legs which have wasted considerably. Notwithstanding the likely challenge from friends that my legs were never particularly muscular in the first place, they were at least a sufficiently coherent collection of muscle fibres to constitute rounded thighs and calves – if not trunks of oak, at least healthily thick branches of willow. Now, however, they resemble several autumnal sapling twigs, rattling around inside an oversized sleeve. The gym ball based exercises and static cycling are designed to rebuild the hamstrings and quads, and it seems, to give me cramp. It’s all progress.
(* I was specifically instructed not to mock the drawings)

So ‘walking with boot’ is another milestone reached. I pondered some of the upcoming milestones on the road to full recovery (that long walk to freedom... ahem), and came up with the following:

• Running on G-Trainer (a zero gravity treadmill) – 5-6 weeks post-op
• Running on a normal treadmill - ???
• Leg press and lunges - ???
• Avoiding dancing / injury at Dave & Laura’s wedding – 8 weeks
• Embarrassing dancing at Sat & Charlotte’s wedding – 11 weeks
• Running on hard ground – 14 weeks
• Embarrassing dancing at Steve & Laura’s wedding (optional tie around forehead) – 20 weeks
• Football training (no ballwork) – 22 weeks?
• Kicking a football! – 26 weeks?
• Full football - Pre-season tour – 28 weeks
• First 50/50 tackle – 28 weeks + 1 day
• Back in hospital – 29 weeks

Stats & highlights
Days until brothers stag do: 8
Current reading: Inverting The Pyramid
Music: Redemption Song (Bob Marley)
On request (cheers Keeno) I have added some new stats:
Number of times I’ve wanted to scratch my leg beneath the cast/boot: Approx. 792
Number of Google searches in last week: Approx. 56
Top 10 Google searches (work-safe version):
1. ‘liverpool+Manchester+united+transfer+spending’
2. ‘london+weather+forecast’
3. ‘liverpool+versus+Manchester+united+highlights’
4. ‘buy+private+islands’
5. ‘puerto+banus+restaurants’
6. ‘puerto+banus+bars’
7. ‘comic+relief+Kilimanjaro+climb+faked’ (0 results – it’s a conspiracy)
8. ‘how+to+make+a+mojito’
9. ‘pamplona+bulls+running’
10. ‘doves+tickets+brixton’