Delayed publication due to police investigation.
This is a long blog, documenting my recent accident. I've written in detail.
Over the Christmas period I had suffered from a depressive episode, which had really taken its toll on every part of my life. It also resulted in me having to cancel my plans to travel to Sierra Leone, as I was not in any fit mental state to manage such a major change. I had to come to terms with how my plans would have to change. I was still able to run, but I was getting very little joy out of it because of the exhaustion that comes with depression and I knew I was doing it more to preserve my little remaining sanity. Endorphin chasing to take the edge of the misery. By the middle of January I was more settled on some new medication and was starting to feel small tendrils of hope pushing up through the mud. I had plans for courses to go on, races I wanted to do, aims to get selected to the GB trail team again and a bit of traveling I might manage if my mental state continued to improve.
On 20th of January I fell whilst training on the coastpath, splitting my knee open on a rock. The cut went right down to the bone and needed suturing, and the knee itself was very swollen and painful. Dad told me that I wouldn't be running for a couple of weeks at least. I limped around in a bad mood for days, snapping at family, whinging about how I was going to get fat. By day 9 I tried to go for a run, got 3 steps and was stopped by the pain. Huh. Well, at least now the wound was closed I could swim. And with the AoA a definite no-go, I was pretty confident I would heal in time for Transgrancanaria in March, which was my first A-list race of the year. I could not wait to hit those mountains!
On 30/1/16 I went for my first swim. 3.5K later and my knee was feeling a lot looser and I was feeling a lot more optimistic! I spent lunchtime cleaning my road bike and then late in the afternoon I decided to give my knee a try on the bike. Setting off up the hill from home I felt a little stiff, but my knee handled the rotational movement well and so I carried on down through Horrabridge towards Tavistock, planning to do a loop of the town and head home again.
I worked hard down the hill from Grenofen as it was raining and I didn't want to get cold by just coasting. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular.
What happened next happened so quickly, but the time involved also seemed to become stretched out. I saw a car pulling across the road into my path, turning off the far lane into the car park of Lidl. Directly into my path. Seemingly moving so slowly. In my mind, I knew I was going to hit it. I was cycling down the road with no reason to stop, and had not been slowing for any reason as I had right of way, I was probably doing between 15-20mph, and now, here was this car, in my path. I thought briefly about what I could possibly do to avoid this. But these thoughts were fleeting, I think I screamed 'No No No' and in my head I was just thinking 'NOT now, this CAN'T be happening. Everything is just starting to get better'
I don't remember impacting the side of the car, rolling over the bonnet, cracking the windscreen on my way. I don't remember landing on the road on the far side of the car. What I do remember next is intense pain in my right knee and an overwhelming feeling of despair at what, even at the point, I knew were going to be serious injuries. I started crying uncontrollably, screaming and screaming, rolling around in pain (I never understood that phrase before...I do now) while people tried to calm me down and protect my C-spine. I remember hearing a lot of screaming children and people trying to get my details off me while I continued to scream and cry and shout that I just wanted Jason. My knee was in so much pain and I felt it would be more comfortable if I flexed it, but couldn't move it. Wave after wave of despair and fear washed continued to wash over me, and I started to shake uncontrollably. Someone told me everything was going to be ok, and i just sobbed back 'why this now? Everything was just starting to get better'. When the ambulance arrived I was scooped off the ground into the back, and given entonox for my pain. The paramedics put all the heaters available on, but I was still shaking violently and the Entonox did little for the pain, but did make me hyperventilate. As we reached Derriford I came close to passing out.
In resus I was met by one of the ED consultants 'Hi, I'm Higgy, I'm one of the ED consultants'. I responded it 'Hi, I'm Sarah one of the medical SHOs' at which point he recognised who I was. Jason arrived and I began to calm a little, partly due to the bolus of morphine that I'd been given on arrival. I stopped sobbing and tried to think 'ok, it'll be fine, I'll look stupid because all this is just going to be bruising'. Higgy examined me, cleared my C-spine, my thorax and pelvis. He checked out my left knee, which had a gaping open wound over it. Asked me to straight leg raise, which I could with no problem. Checked my right knee, minor abrasions to the knee surface, asked me to straight leg raise.....and I couldn't. He poked around my kneecap for a bit and then said 'you've broken your patella'.
5 minutes later he had to ask me to try to calm down. The waves of despair and fear were back, and this time they were a tsunami. I knew the implications of a patella fracture for a runner. I went for imaging, and when he had reviewed that he had more bad news. It wasn't a simple fracture. It was smashed into lots of bits. Pretty soon after that I was seen by Mr Stitson the orthopaedic consultant who painted a doom-and-gloom picture of the extent of comminution, difficulty of fixation, potential need for a partial patellaectomy and uncertain long term function. I asked if I would be able to compete again in the future, but all he could tell me was 'we'll just have to wait and see'. The draw-back of having done 8 months of orthopaedics is I have a good understanding of what was going on in my knee and why they were being so pessimistic. I spent the rest of the evening trying to think of the positives; I'm young, I'm very fit, I don't smoke, I have no other health issues, it's not an open fracture and my bone-stock will be good due to the impact exercise I do.
So, Saturday evening left me lying in bed, waiting for my operation on sunday morning, and trying to come to terms with how quickly my identity had changed, and just how different 2016 was going to be compared to what I had planned out. No TGC. No world championship trials. No race to the stones/race to the King double, and no West Highland way. And, most of all, no opportunity to represent my country at the sport I love the most.
Maybe I will still get these chances in the future. Maybe it will only be as a finisher and not a winner. Maybe it won't happen at all.
In the words of Mr Stitson, "We'll just have to wait and see."
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