The Long Journey

About 7 or 8 months ago I twisted my knee quite badly on the football pitch and eventually I was diagnosed with a torn ACL in my left knee. This meant I had no problem with day to day walking, going up and down stairs, driving etc. but football, snowboarding, wakeboarding and any other sport I couldn’t do.

The ACL will not repair itself if it is ruptured so I waited for surgery. On the NHS you now get to choose your hospital - I chose Preston Royal even though I am in Blackpool and nearer to the Victoria Hospital. I waited for my operation date and one day I got a call to ask if I would like to be sent private, all paid for by the NHS. So I got a date of 28th December for the operation at Capio hospital in Leyland.

So a couple of days ago I went in for the operation. I didn’t think I was nervous but my heart rate gave it away; fortunately I was first in the queue and put into a helpless anesthetic sleep by 9:15am. I woke up in a room of fellow patients coming round from deep sleeps with some of them babbling incoherently.

The hospital, nurses, doctor, anaesthetists and physios were all great. I was doing knee exercises, walking on crutches, bending, walking up stairs within an hour or two of my operation.

So here I am a couple of days later. I am closer to walking fully and, with the help of strong painkillers, getting a lot of movement out of my knee. My dressing will come off tomorrow along with the On-Q Pain Buster which is slowly dripping anesthetic into my knee.

Of course I fear that I won’t play football again to any standard, or that I won’t snowboard or wakeboard but so far it is going really well and I do believe I will be back stronger than ever.

Or that could be the morphine based painkillers.