A few weeks ago, back in March I wrote a very brief post referring to the need to do what the doctor says – that post was written just after I had started my recovery from shoulder surgery. The timing of the shoulder surgery was pretty ideal really, and with the operation in March I was reasonably confident that it wouldn’t have much impact on the summers biking and in particular my road trip scheduled for early July.
I have no firm plan, other than a one way ticket on the ferry from Plymouth to Santander and then to spend a few more days in the Pico’s before heading for Portugal to do some more of the magnificent roads I found last year when I stayed down in Mantiegas
After that I have only the sketchiest of plans – probably time in Andalucia, then across Spain towards France and Northern Italy (the Trentino region) before perhaps heading for a ferry home from Dunkirk or maybe Rotterdam/Zeebrugge via Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg etc.
In truth the shoulder recovery hasn’t gone quite as well as I had hoped but not enough to throw any major spanners in the works … but my situation all changed a few days ago.
I’m a regular walker – typically a 150 or so miles a month and have been walking incident free for a good number of years, that was until Wednesday of last week – when a spanner of epic proportions was indeed thrown into the mix.
The most innocuous of stumbles on a gravelly/stony unmade road led me to fall forward and hit the ground, with my left knee catching the worst of it and slamming full square onto a protruding rock or stone.
I’ll spare the details – the bottom line is that my knee (the patella) is fractured – straight up the middle apparently.
My leg is now in something called a ‘cricket brace’ and other than being able to take it off to wash it’s on 24/7 for about six weeks.
I’m not really one for over reading medical info’ on the internet but I know enough and have read enough about this sort of injury to know that my trip is now hanging by the thinnest of threads and in truth I think I already know that it’s almost certainly not going to happen.
I’ve got a medical review this coming week and I wont make a final decision until the back end of the week, but in my heart of hearts I think I know whats coming.
1 thought on “sometimes you just want to swear …. a lot”