In my local hospital there is a room before you go into surgery. Nurses check who you are. Why you’re there.
I spend two hours in that room.
Several patients roll through before me. All upbeat. Happy.
For them, waiting list purgatory is over. Finally, a knee replacement. Hand surgery. An end to chronic pain.
Today marks the start of a new life.
I am not upbeat. Or happy. I have not been waiting for this moment.
Until 9.38am yesterday, this moment hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Before 9.38am yesterday I wasn’t aware of this room.
At 9.38am yesterday I was knocked off my bike. By a flying sheep.
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So yeah, I’ve broken my hip.
Not that anyone thought it at the hospital.
By the time my wife got me there, jacked up on paracetamol and ibuprofen – me, not her – I wasn’t in a lot of pain.
The vibes felt good.
The doctor thought it was just bruising. The x-ray would confirm it.
The x-ray did not confirm it.
Instead it showed I’d broken my femur, at the neck just below the ball … of the bone.
Which is a pretty common break.
If you’re 85. Not so much at 46.
Reality rushed in hard.
I’d need surgery to screw the bone back together.
Recovery would be painful. Fitness immediately gone.
And I’d just dropped a toilet full of busy family life shizzle entirely on my wife.
And that’s not to mention the uncertainty.
If the fix didn’t work, I would need a hip replacement. But we wouldn’t know this for months.
The vibes had turned a little darker.
But the operation went well.
The hospital physios had me standing the following day. The next day, with crutches, I could walk and use the stairs.
That evening I went home with a fair amount of metal: a set of crutches, two support frames for toileting, and a titanium enhanced hip.
Which I’d now have to carry up each climb. Assuming I’d be able to ride a bike up hill again.
The initial period of recovery wasn’t too bad.
Medication dulled the pain, at least during the day, and, apart from some exercises, I didn’t have to do anything.
But even as the bruising and swelling subsided – by all accounts hip surgery is brutal on the surrounding muscles – the doubts set in.
Would I regain full mobility? How long til my leg strength returned? Would normal activities – kneeling, putting my socks on, the pelvic thrust – always cause pain?
And was I doing the right things? Was I exercising enough? Should I push more? Or was I doing too much, risking damage?
I needed help.
Luckily we know an excellent sports physio through my daughter’s gym club.
It was a sports injury, I wanted to recover like an athlete. Obviously.
Steady yourself for a non-profound insight. Seeing a specialist physio early in my recovery was a great decision.
The session allayed my immediate fears. He was confident I could regain fitness and mobility.
I could, and I should, be doing exercises to get the muscles working again.
Which he gave me.
He described what else would be damaged, in addition to the bone, which explained why one leg, uncomfortably, felt longer than the other. And why I stood on the wonk.
He also recommended I hire this recovery machine.
Which, despite looking like haptic pants for onanists, in fact pumped ice cold water around my hip whilst simultaneously applying compression.
So to reduce swelling rather than incite it.
And the progress resumed. I focused on doing the exercises. Resting in between. Quality time with the ice pump.
I resumed work work. Luckily I’m largely remote anyway. My daily walks got longer. I dropped from two crutches to one.
But I still wasn’t sleeping well.
No matter my progress through the day, I struggled at night. Despite the strong painkillers consumed, I couldn’t find a comfortable position. As a middle aged man, waking with one muscle below the waist tensed is a triumph. Waking with all of them tensed is a nightmare.
Sleep came in two hour stints. What sleep I had was low quality.
Whilst I doubt the precision of Garmin’s body battery feature, the trend, if we can call flatlining a trend, mirrored how I felt.
Each day I woke up exhausted. I took hours getting out of bed.
I had to crank myself into action with strong coffee and amphetamines (*artistic licence alert).
By lunchtime I could barely string two thoughts together.
I still excelled at my day job though, in case my boss is watching.
Talking of job, or the home office where I mainly do it from, that’s where I also have my indoor trainer.
I would find myself gazing at it, wondering if I’d ever be able to crank my leg to mount it, never mind rest my bionic hip on the narrow saddle or get my flaccid muscles turning the pedals with my former joie de vivre.
For someone at the sanguine end of the level-headedness spectrum, I guess I was at a fairly low ebb.
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Once again it was my physio that came with the answer.
At our second session my strength and range of movement had improved. He was very positive. The exercises and the robo-masturbation machine were working.
He knew I was a cyclist, albeit one unable to avoid sheep.
He suggested we try the Wattbike in his studio.
Immediately it felt great. Well not great. But not the excruciatingly pain I feared from putting weight on the saddle. I could turn the pedals.
A broad grin spread across my face. The route back to riding opened immediately in front of my. My loins glowed warm, but not with agony.
And immediately my progress kicked up to another level.
I could ride on the trainer as much as I felt able, albeit with the saddle raised ludicrously high to get over the top of the stroke.
I was to lengthen my stride, forcing a wider range of motion as I walked.
I got a new set of exercises focused on engaging more muscles in my legs and relieving the pressure in quads. A holiday allowed me to focus on doing them consistently and resting in between.
The aches and pains receded, a bit. I gradually begin to control the discomfort and night and sleep for longer periods.
The man from El Garmin, his body battery finally started to say yes.
On Monday 25th August, 8 weeks exactly after my surgery, I made it back on to my bike.
My two wife-mandated chaperones were no doubt bored with the sedate pace. There’s a definite element of cowboy style to my stroke. But at least I was turning the pedals. I made it onto, and off, the bike. I did not crash
The programme restarts here.
September 4 – Training Diary:
“Manually lowered FTP to a guess—180 watts. Did a Level 1 workout on Zwift—full of inspiring messages for pregnant women.
In retrospect, the name ‘Bumps’ should’ve been a clue. But like women with child, I too felt it was important not to get too hot.
Managed to dismount without needing my step—though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on my usual side.”
There’s still a long way to go.
If blood flow hasn’t returned to the femur head, and we won’t know for 12–18 months, I’ll be staring down the barrel of a full hip replacement.
Which doesn’t feel like a good thing. But the signs, like the vibes, are positive, and we’ll climb that col if we get to it.
In the meantime, walking can be painful. My gait is that of an arthritic orang-utan. I still can’t put on my left sock.
And my fitness is in the hole.
But weirdly, I’m looking forward to the build. It seems that progress is satisfying, whatever level you start from.
That said, I’ve got a Majorca trip in April next year. Vague platitudes won’t help halfway up Sa Colobra. I need to get actually fit rather than ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ fit.
So for now, I’m rebuilding. Leg strength. Hip movement. Overall flexibility.
I’m not chasing the old version of Mont. I’m building a new one.
A better one.
Forged in the crucible of suffering.
Honed in the pain cave of paracetamol.
Like no Mont you’ve seen before.
End game.
Final boss.
Titanium Mont.
