Just over a year ago, my life was plodding along and to be fair, i was enjoying it more than i probably realised at the time.  I was working for a very well known bank as a Business Manager in the Midlands.  I lived (and still do i might add) with my girlfriend of 4 years in a house we had recently bought.  On a weekend i enjoyed playing for a local football team, however, i had just turned 30 years old and i was probably going to make the 2006/7 season my last.  Everything changed one Sunday morning in August...

There i was, playing football, a friendly in preparation for the season ahead.  We had finished the season before really well and we had great expectations...  Twenty minutes into the match, there was a 50/50 ball and i was confident i would win the tackle and to be fair, i did!  However, the immediate pain that followed told me that i had won the tackle and it had cost me dearly.  Once i had stopped screeching in a combination of pain and shock, at the realisation that i had broken my leg...  I slowly assessed what had happened exactly.  It wasn't too gruesome, no bones sticking out of socks etc...  However, it was evident that my shin bone (tibia) was not looking too good.  In fact the leg was clearly out of shape.  At this point, the lads started making jokes to keep my spirits up and that was great, but, i did feel like my world had fallen in to say the least.

The ambulance journey was hard, i was high on the gas they gave me, but, i still felt every bump in the road.  In the hospital, they were very good and i thank them for dealing with me they way they did.  They X-rayed me and i was told that i had snapped the tibia but the fibular was still intact.   I thought this was good news...  Anyway, the plan was to pump me up with morphine and more gas, then to manipulate the bone and put on a plaster cast.  If the X-ray showed that all was in line, that would have been me on my way.  You guessed it, it was a mile out and so surgery was the next step.

My first operation involved me being put to sleep while the surgeon inserted an intermediary rod down the inside of my tibia to keep it in line.  The rod was then screwed at the ankle and just below the knee, securing the bone with a slight gap between the ends.  In an ideal world, i would have had minimal wounds and a leg that looked normal.  Unfortunately, they couldn't get the bone in line and so, they opened up my shin and manually put it in line, then stitched me up.  As a bloke, i wasn't worried...  A scar on the shin would be like a badge of honor in the football changing rooms and it would eventually fade anyway.  So, after a stay in hospital of 3-4 nights, i was sent home to recover in comfort.

After a few weeks, i was still slightly bleeding from the large wound on the shin.  I mentioned it to the surgeon, but, he dismissed it.  Sometimes it takes a long time, he said.  He's the surgeon, i didn't worry.  After a couple more weeks though, i knew it wasn't right.  I went to the local GP.  She confirmed it was infected and took a swab.  She prescribed some broad spectrum antibiotics but it turned out the bugs were not affected and so a week later i was prescribed something different.  Meanwhile the infection was getting worse...  After a couple more weeks, i was back at the hospital and the surgeon said that i would need an operation to debride the wound.  This would involve cutting away all the dead tissue and then i would have to see the plastic surgeon to discuss how best to heal the big hole in my leg.  So, this was operation number two...

In the weeks after the second operation, i was constantly at the hospital or the GP having the wound dressed etc...  It kept getting re infected again and again.  To cut a long story short, it was not until after Christmas 2007, that i finally started with a new prisma dressing and progress was made. 

During this time, i had lots of time to reflect on life and i had further decided, that i didn't want to work for that particular bank anymore, and so, started to have a look around.  After a couple of interviews i found a job with another large bank, but, in a pure business development role.  I accepted this role because it never crossed my mind that my bone wouldn't be healing.  I was just getting on with managing the wound.  I started the new job 18th December 2006...  They were very good.  They told me to manage my diary accordingly in terms of hospital appointments and if i needed a few weeks off, it would be no problem.  As far as i was concerned, once i had healed the wound, the bone wouldn't far behind.  How wrong i was...

I think it was January 2007 when i was told that the bone was not healing and as such, they were going to take out the screws in the ankle.  This is called dynomising, i think.  Anyway, this would allow the bones to properly come together and hopefully stimulate the bone to start healing.  Unfortunately, one of the screws snapped and they couldn't get it out.  They decided to leave it in, simply because they were confident that it wouldn't stop the bone from coming together.  3-4 weeks later, i was told, it probably was having an effect, and so, i would need another operation...  Number four!  This would knock the piece of screw out of the other side...  I felt like it was a nail in a piece of wood the way the surgeon talked about it.  When i came around in the recovery room, it really did feel like i had been hit in the ankle with a lump hammer repeatedly...  Well, until the morphine kicked in anyway ;-)

It was probably around April time, when the surgeon started telling me that, so much time had passed that i would need some kind of intervention to kick start things again.  So, no matter what we talked about, it looked like operation number five was on the horizon.  It was thought that the infection had got into the fracture site and this then stopped the bone from healing properly.  Further, as the ends of a bone die away slightly, the fact that my fibular had never broken, now meant that it was actually holding the tibia apart and acting like a strut.  In terms of options available, i could have another intermediary rod (nail), but, if there was infection, it might not work.  A plate was out of the question for the same reason, and so, he told me about a technique that was developed by a russian,  ILIZAROV!  As this was not his specialist subject, he referred me to a colleague.  At this stage, i was not too worried.  For some reason, i had 6-10 weeks in my mind...  I thought, i could do that no problem, and so, i was actually looking forward to meeting the new consultant. 

I met the new consultant and was very impressed in the way that he talked frank and to the point with me.  I was filled with confidence in him to do whatever it took to get me back on the road to recovery and then he said it...  He told me i could expect to spend at least 16-20 weeks in the frame he would construct on my leg!  I was shocked...  I was devastated!  He told me to go away and do my research and think about it, so, i did.  I came to the conclusion that there was no other way.  I would just have to bite the bullet and get on with it.  Therefore, at my next meeting with the consultant, i agreed to go ahead and we compared diaries etc...

I was conscious that the last year had been very hard for me and my partner...  We had been due to travel to Australia to see her sister who lives there and we never made it because of my leg.  I had changed jobs and was still trying to prove myself to them as i couldn't afford to live if they got rid of me...  My partner had been made redundant from her job which actually paid more than mine and so, we had a few weeks of stress trying to get her sorted...  Etc, etc...  Everyone has there own issues.  Anyway, we had a holiday booked at the end of June and it had been two years since we had had one.  Therefore, we decided that we should go on holiday and do what we need to do before the operation and so, we did.  I had been advised that i wouldn't be doing myself further damage, so all was fine.

To bring things up to the present day, i agreed with the surgeon to have my operation on 29th August 2007.  Unfortunately, he is a keen cricketer and he injured his hand playing a game.  This meant the operation was called off and then rescheduled for 19th September 2007.  As i write this, it is Sunday 16th September and my partner has gone for a prebooked week away with her mum.  To be fair, she is gutted that she won't be around and so am i, but, i am very lucky because my own mum will come down from Yorkshire to look after me for a week after i get out of hospital.  I have a few friends who have said they will pop in and see me, so, the first couple of weeks will be ok hopefully.

This is how i came to be here and believe it or not, this is the short version, as i am sure you will appreciate if you are in a similar position.  From now on, i will create blog entries for those who would like to keep up with my progress.  It is fair to say that with a couple of days to go, i feel quite nervous, but, by the same token...  If by going through this, i can run another half marathon, it will be worth every minute of hassle along the way...  Fingers crossed!

If you, yourself are reading this and are in a similar situation, i hope this site will help you to feel better about what is happening right now and on that note, good luck to you too!

Thank you for taking the time to read this far...

Dave