Oh well, i guess i dont even know where to begin. Anyways, i made it here to Australia to finish off my degree, and i was happy that the process was pretty smooth. I was jet-lagged though for nearly ten days! falling asleep during day, getting up during the night, god what a mess!
I made my first appearance here on the 27th of July. It was the quad relays and i was put on to run the third leg, the only thing that i didt know until the same day was that the relay was run in the unis park! When i first looked at it, it didnt look very good. I could tell there were sharp turnes, bit on grass and bit on concrete, i wouldve easily backed off if there were any subs, but we were the only people so it was too late, i wasnt gonna let the whole college down, it was gonna make me look bad.
When it was time for me to run, we were running second, the track was marked by cones which you had to follow or else you would take wrong turnes. The total distance was worked out to be 210m. Anyways the guy took a wrong turn and since i was running second, i just followed him until we both realised that we were running behind the fence, so the only option really was to get back in, so at that speed i jumped over the fence and landed on my left knee, i felt i twisted it, but i just kept on running anyways, i must have had atleast 120m to go.
After i finished my run, i just fell on the floor and like the pain came out on me all a sudden, it was unbearable, i have never felt such pain probably in my life! and i didnt know what to do and where to put my leg. I told my friend to get me some ice immediately and i could just see it swelling and swelling, and the pain was so bad it even got me sick!
I saw the unis doctor and she transferred me to a specialist straight away. He told me he thinks that i have torn my crucial ligament, but he wasnt sure he wanted me to do a scan. Here came the problem, i have only been here for not even two weeks, i have paid a lot of money to settle in, buying books, i just couldnt afford, there was NOTHING that i could do. My insurance would not cover an MRI scan!!! which was gonna cost me arounds $360, and then he suggested some form of operation!
By the time i got back to my room the swelling was so bad that my calves were unbelievably stiff, and my quads were tight too. In the middle of the night i would get up in pain, and my leg would feel numb, and i would just have to rub it and the numbness would go away. I thougth at that point, that my track career was over!!!
I thought to myself, just give it time, ice it ALL the time, take some anti-inflammatory pills, and take it easy. I started off by walking to uni, usually it would take 10min to get to class, but at that pace it would take 40min, sometimes even i would walk for 1min and rest for another 2min, it was terrible. It was until i noticed that my walking was looking almost normal, and from there i would try and bend my knees slowly and flex, just nice and easy, and obviously do the ice.
Time passed by until the swelling had gone down by chunks, but anytime i would flex my leg my quads wouldnt respond, and i could see that they have gone much much smaller in size than my other leg. I saved up some money so i was able to see a physio, who didnt know what to do, and he needed a scan as well, but i told him, look just treat it like i cant get one until we see what happens. Then i thought in my head, charlies favourite machine, EMS, i asked the physio if he had one, and he was very kind enough to lend it to me.
I started blasting them impulses, slowly, arounds my knee and stimulating my quad, and i couldnt take more than 5min and then my leg would feel tired and my intensity on a scale of one to eight, was at two!
Weeks passed by, until i was able to withstand an intensity of eight for 25min, and generally my leg was responding better to the contractions, it was like its alive again. And from there, my knee was improving pretty well. I started doing very very slow running, on grass, first time i did it, i went on for 8min, and all a sudden my quad cramped. Next day, i ran for 20min. From there i was able to build up to 40min runs on grass, and my pace was slowly picking itself up, i literally wansnt forcing anything, it was happening naturally.
I gave in the EMS machine since i had it for quite a bit and my physio suggested that we should start strengthening my leg, cause the stronger we develop the surrounding muscles, the better the knee would be supported. He suggested exercises like the leg press, leg curl, calf raisers and obviously any form of upper body training. I just did my sit ups and push ups in my room every night before bed.
So i decided to post a journal on my way back to track hopefully, i dont even know if i would be able to do so again, i will just keep building up and i will see where i go from there. But inside of me, there was this fire, that even with that sort of injury, wasnt put off, it was there but dormant, and now its driving me back. Lets see where i can go with this…
