Robots are cool

I went to see a sports physio today. It was extremely interesting and uncovered a bunch of little things that I would never have thought of. After a whole load of strange stretches and positions she thinks that she’s nailed down what the recent troubles with my ankle and knee are all about. It was pretty funny in a way – we’d do a stretch and she’d say:

“You know, you’re really flexible”.

Then we’d do the same stretch on the other side and she’d say

“That’s strange, you’ve got a lot less movement on this side”.

“Ah yes, I broke X/Y/Z a few years ago.”

Repeat.

We did one exercise that highlighted something strange happening with my right leg, that exactly mirrored what Dave had spotted the first time my knee got sore mountain biking. Then there was a bunch of other stretches that showed me what effect the position of my back had on my legs – the difference was eye-opening. For a fairly long time after breaking my back I was getting strange shooting nerve pains down my thighs from the extra pressure on my spinal cord. Over time these have improved so that I rarely get them now, but it seems that I haven’t totally healed. The physio thinks that all of my little tweaks are back/nerve related and that the pain is coming out in my ankle because it is already weakened from when I broke it. Referred pain – strange stuff.

This was highlighted when she stretched my ankle while I was lying down – it didn’t hurt. Into a strange position, stretch, still no pain. Then another strange position – leg out here, back twisting and stretching, the other leg up – then the same ankle stretch, ow! She likened the nerves to a garden hose. The more you twist it and bend it around things, the more it complains until it just stops letting the water through. As I twist and turn, I’m putting more pressure onto my nerves which is hurting my ankle. I was starting to worry that I’d be told to take a rest, but she said what everyone who’s into sport wants to hear, “You don’t want to rest it, just keep doing what you’re doing” – big smiles.

To be honest, I haven’t really thought all that much of physiotherapy and stuff in the past and if someone had told me that I would have to go for several sessions and spend a few hundred pounds, I would have laughed (politely). But a lot of what I found out today made a lot of sense and, while I’m not about to start singing the praises of physios from the rooftops, I’m starting to wonder why I haven’t though much of this in the past (actually, that answer is obvious – I got duff NHS physio after my broken ankle). Of course, the real test will be if I actually improve after some of this stuff, but I’m not as sceptical as I was when I woke up this morning. I think it’ll be interesting.

... I broke my back. It was definitely the worst event in my life so far, saved only by the fact that it could have been much, much worse.

After the terror of thinking I might not be able to walk, the pain of the accident and operation I started on a long recovery period, which is far from finished yet. It was a grim situation, there’s no denying that. However, for a reason I cannot figure out, I sometimes look back at my time in hospital and the early recovery period afterwards with fond memories. Perhaps it just reminds me of how lucky I really was and of how much worse it all could have turned out. I don’t want to forget my thoughts and emotions at the time, part of the reason I’m trying to write some of them down here. I really don’t want to forget just how painful and scary it was. My thoughts still go out to some of the people I met at the Spinal Unit, especially Joey, the lad from Arbroath who was involved in another kiting accident just a few weeks before me. He was not as fortunate as me.

A few months ago my flatmate asked me if I thought any good had come from me breaking my back. I was quick to answer “no”, but on reflection I’ve been trying to draw as many positives from the experience as possible. The whole thing was very grounding as my life was quickly shoved into perspective. Kiting and all the little things that I had focused so much energy on suddenly didn’t matter. I realised how trivial it all was and how I had taken so many important things in my life for granted. In hospital and the months afterwards I had plenty time to think about family, friends and myself. Over the winter I stayed at home in Haddington with my parents while I started to recover and I now feel even closer to them than before. I appreciate how how great they really are and how much they’ve helped me, not just in the last year. They really are brilliant people.

Cheesy as it sounds, I also found out a lot about myself. In hospital, it dawned on me how selfish it can be to just do sport to the exclusion of a lot of other things. After I had started to recover a reasonable amount, I started to live a relatively normal (read: not into sport) life. It was really interesting to suddenly have lots of time, with nothing to be overly passionate about, much like many other people appear to me to live. Things are changing back again now, but it was good to have a completely different perspective on things for a while. Does this mean I’m going to take a different approach to things like sport? On the outside I doubt it will appear like I have, but I feel it has matured me a little.

I’ve also found out a lot more about how I deal with injuries, both physically and mentally. I’m certain that I can cope better with them now than in the past, but is this because I’m more mature or just because I’m more experienced at getting injured? The recovery has been a much slower and harder proccess that I imagined. Although I have broken a few bones before, I wasn’t really prepared for how much the injury was to take out of me. It’s not just back pain that you need to content with – your entire body gets pounded and your general strength and fitness take a real beating. I’ve been finding it particuarly hard not to do too much too soon (I’ve been having some troubles with my knee from over-cycling). However, my fitness is starting to come together again, albeit pretty slowly. I’m looking forward to getting out biking more and more over the winter, starting kitesurfing again and improving at surfing once the autumn swells start to kick in.

Kiting, in particular, will be interesting – will I remember what to do? Will I get scared? Will I have calmed down at all? In answer to the last question – almost certainly. After all, with hindsight it was obvious one of us was going to get hurt sooner or later! Of course, the flipside of this is that it’s the perfect opportunity to think up something new and take a different approach to the whole thing and I’m really excited about that.

Last week I had my final appointment with the hospital and was discharged from the Spinal Unit out-patients. My bones have more or less healed fully now (although they will still get stronger over the next year), and I’m feeling better than I have for a long, long time. Now, if someone can just arrange some sunshine, wind and waves for every day that I’m off work, everything will be all good!

I’ve just had a great weekend, but it did leave me wondering exactly how much I should be doing with regards to my back. Friday saw me go climbing at North Berwick, but it’s OK – I was on a top rope. Saturday I went mountain biking, but it’s OK – I could have gone faster. I went Surfing on Sunday, but it’s OK – the waves weren’t that big. Hmm.

It’s now becoming harder to see where to draw the line. In fact, the line appears to be moving around at a fair rate. Is top-roping an ‘impact sport’? My easy fireroad ride quickly turned into a not-all-that-slow technical singletrack affair, what does that mean? And surfing, I know it’s in the water, but it’s not really like swimming, is it? But, despite doing more and more, and despite some pretty kick ass wind recently, I haven’t been tempted to start kiting again. Something’s just telling me not to. So far everything is all good, or as good as can be expected, but kiting just seems that little bit different to other sports to me. It’s not just that you need to use a harness and that your back gets jerked quite hard – Stuart and I have commented before that when something goes wrong and you lose control there is this extra, unpredictable element which can put you in the shit. Kites are dangerous toys that need to be respected and I’m perfectly happy to give myself some more time before I get involved with them again. For everything else, I’m just going to take it as it comes. I’ve been pretty sensible so far and I’m not wanting to mess things up now.

Anyway, it was a brilliant weekend – I climbed a technical F6C+ route I’d never tried before with Mike, Dave and I went for the best mountain bike ride I’ve done for years and surfing is starting to click (albeit slowly). I love sport.

Went to the hospital yesterday for my delayed appointment. The news was probably mostly as I expected apart from the annoyance of not being allowed to do press-ups, pull-ups or sit-ups until I’ve seen them again in four months. I had been hoping to be able to do a little indoor climbing, but it looks like that’s not happening for a while. Also no running and I’m not really meant to play racket sports where I’m lunging about too much. I was tentatively told I could cycle on the road, but to take it easy.

“I’m afraid I don’t think you’re going to listen to me.” the surgeon said as I was leaving. She’s judged me wrong though – nobody is more keen to get back to kiting, climbing and all the rest than I am, but the last thing I want is to hurt myself more. ‘Click, click, pop’ would not be cool.

Yesterday I was reminded again what a serious injury it is. Although there’s always a bit of pain, it can be easy to forget. I’m also starting to realise how long it’s going to take to get strong again. My priority for the next four months is to get as fit and strong as possible, although I’ll need to find out what the best way to strengthen my back is. Longer term plan is to be back to kiting strength by the start of September.

Been swimming again today, the fourth time since taking the brace off and probably the fourth time since stopping triathlon five years ago! Starting to feel a wee bit better in the pool, even went for some structured training today with timed sets and rests. Swimming about 1600m a session just now and starting to build some pace into my swimming again. Hopefully I’ll be swimming 6km a week in the new year. I’ve really enjoyed swimming recently, not had this sort of satisfaction out of it for about ten years!

Since recoding the Wind Things home page I’ve really changed my opinion about JavaScript and have been learning stuff about it, especially unobtrusive (inobtrusive?) DHTML as demonstrated in this Sitepoint article. There are some really cool features I’m looking forward to implementing for JavaScript enabled browsers when we release SC3. Right, I’m off to Edinburgh to get pissed.

My delayed appointment in January still stands, but today I was x-rayed and examined in Edenhall hospital, Musselburgh. The news was way better than I expected – my back all looks like it should (the x-rays are very cool!) and I can start to do some excercise at long last. Only swimming and gym work just now, adding cycling and running in a month or two, but still loads better than waiting until the end of January to do anything.

I didn’t waste any time and got straight to the pool for the most tiring swim session of my life. I could only manage a feeble 8×100m sets (a warm-up!) but that’s probably to be expected all things considered. Right, time to get fit again then.

Had my back brace off for 15 minutes for the first time this morning. Back felt super weak (no shit!) and I don’t think I looked too relaxed walking about. I’ve got my brace back on now and my back is really starting to hurt. Think I’ll take it off for another quarter of an hour just now, I’m deperate to get stronger. Getting there…

Last night I had dinner at Potter’s house where he and his wife Diana made it seem like a good idea to try dye my hair blue. All was going well until we washed my hair and most of the colour parted company with my head leaving a kind of blue rinse effect…not cool. Hopefully this photo does it justice. If it doesn’t look that bad, it hasn’t done it justice!

Today Potter, John, Pedro and I went to the St Andrews kite day. Bad start to the day for Ped as I trapped and mangled his fingers in the door of the van – bad one, sorry mate! It was the first time I’ve been around kiting since I broke my back and it was actually pretty cool. Thankfully there was no wind (typical kite festival then) so nobody was looking like they were having too much fun. Was cool to speak to loads of folk I’ve not seen since the summer: like Kai from Flexi, all of the St Andrews crew, Iain from Twist and Turn and GPS Roj from PKD. Had a decent scran and some beers in St A’s which was a laugh then back in the van with the usual proper discussion on the way home :).

Tomorrow’s the day I’ve been waiting for for the last three months, I finally get to start taking my brace off – yippee (although it’ll probably be a total anti-climax)! It’s only for half an hour, but it’s a start and I’ll probably be glad to get it back on ‘cos I reckon it’s gonna hurt.

Finally got to speak to the hospital about my delayed appointment. Looks like my appointment will remain on the 20th January, but I can start taking the brace off at the start of December. This is mixed news.

Obvioulsy I’m glad I’ll be able to start taking it off, but I can’t swim (or anything else vaguely althletic) at least until I see the surgeon in January. This is later than I had hoped but I guess a few weeks won’t make much difference in the long term. They also told me to only take it off for 30mins the first couple of days, build up slowly and prepare for it to be very sore. Again I’ve been reminded how serious breaking you back can be. Hmmm.

Got up this morning to find a letter from the Spinal Unit telling me that they “regret to inform you that your appointment on 02/12/03 has to be re-scheduled to 20/01/04”.

WTF? I’m expected to wear this back brace for 20 weeks instead of 13? Something wrong here. I called them a few times but couldn’t seem to speak to anyone important. In the end I was told that the surgeon would call me on Thursday or thereabouts to sort something out. We’ll see what happens…

To try to get that out of my head I went to St Abbs with my parents and niece, Jenny. It’s a lovely wee village in the Scottish Borders and we’d never been before. We checked out the harbour, little museum and walked for a couple of hours around the cliffs of St Abbs Head, the nature reserve. If you’ve not been and you live nearby you should check it out next time you’ve got a day free.

Note to self: must film some moutain biking on the clifftop paths there when my back is better, could look really good.

We’d just finished our walk when the client who’s site we’ve been working on recently called to tell me, out of the blue, that he already has a new site that he only just found out about so he won’t be needing us. A pretty shitty way of doing business to say the least and it’s left me with a foul taste in my mouth.

Had a shower this morning, sitting on the bath seat thing as usual. Took my brace to put it back on when the top metal part fell off. Not cool. Closer inspection revealed a proper crack on the plastic bit too. Hmmm.

It felt a little shaky at Stuart’s house last night and now it was decidedly limp. Luckily my Mum and Dad were around to hunt out a replacement bolt and after a 20 minute service in the bath it was good to go.

This isn’t the first time I’ve wondered if the designers of this brace have ever bothered to try the thing on. There are bolts going into nuts that are imposible to grip, one set that you can only do up hand tight and your ribs get bruised by another set. Usuability testing seemed not to apply to this product. Ack well, 5 weeks to go…

Off into Edinburgh now to discuss data structuring and interface design with Mike which should be cool.

EDIT: the post I made a year after my accident may be interesting too.

A little over two months ago (August 17th) I broke my back quite badly in a kite mountainboarding crash. I landed very hard on my arse after my bar (which controls the kite) got caught on my harness. My L1 vertibrae burst into my spinal column damaging my spinal cord, but thankfully not severing it. I spent two and a half weeks in Glasgow Southern General Spinal Injuries Unit, which is an excellent facility by the way, where I had an operation to stabilise my back with two plates and four pins.

By all accounts I’m super lucky to be able to walk and should make a pretty much full recovery, even if it takes a year. I’m at the stage where I’m starting to feel like I’ve got a back again and I’ve got another eight weeks of wearing a space-age-looking back brace before I can start to get my back strengthened up. The surgeons are very non-commital (fair enough!) about how long it’ll get to back into sports and I’m just going to take it as it comes.