My story: finding my feet after injury

31 March 2023.

Rushing to a training session, I sprinted across a wet slippery surface, slipped and ended up slamming into a brick wall. Thinking it was just a twanked ankle I stood and tried to walk, but was walking on alternate sides of the ankle bone. After a quick bum shuffle across the garden to the house, I stood up to grab the phone and blacked out, fracturing my cheek bone on the kitchen counter on the way down. 

My neighbour iced up my injuries while I called my doubles partner, Pat, to tell her I would be missing training; she wanted to know if I was pranking her with an early April Fool! She was brilliant, came straight over and accompanied me to hospital and waited until I was admitted. 

Strangely, there was minimal pain, most probably shock. I was convinced soft tissue damage is the worst type of injury, so when the A&E team confirmed I had a trimalleolar fracture of the left ankle, I felt relieved! Very naïve but I felt fortunate as it could have been much worse. 

Repair time

Surgery was scheduled for the following afternoon. I made sure the surgeon knew I was a rower and that I didn’t want any flimsy repair. The surgery team thought I was completely crazy! Turns out they really went to town with the metalwork. I have 2 pins, 2 plates and 14 screws holding it together.

The following morning I was discharged with a set of crutches and bag of medication. My husband had just landed back in the UK and came straight over to the hospital to collect me.

Initial recovery

For 6 weeks I was trying to maintain my muscular strength. Upper body, torso and right leg work was relatively easy. I bought a kneeling crutch to strap to the left leg. This enabled me to load bear on my left side and attempt to walk without crutches. However, after a few minutes of being upright my ankle/leg would swell and feel like it was trying to burst the cast. My unusual staircase at home was difficult to negotiate with crutches and it was often quicker to bum shuffle up and down and it involved a single legged squat at either end.

I had asked my surgeon how long before I could row again. He smiled knowingly and said as soon as you can walk evenly without any aids. Challenge accepted!

However, he did say that there was a risk that there might be some bone fragments still within the joint and that the cartilage was damaged/bits missing. If I wanted to run or do plyometrics again my ankle life would be very limited and the next stop would be fusion. However, rowing was permitted … phew! 

Off with the plaster cast

I had this naïve belief that after six weeks I would be plaster cast free and walking normally …. Erm  No.

The cast was removed and time for the big reveal… Nooooo!  My calf muscles had disappeared and there was minimal flexibility in my swollen ankle. Even my socks wouldn’t fit, so my woolly tights were cropped. The instructions were to gradually increase the loading until I was able to load balance equally across both legs.

The recovery

My first call was to my physio, Mark Dyer. After checking the joint and assessing my limits he told me to put my trainers on – the foot was so large that even with the laces out it was a tight squeeze. He then took me into his gym and said to get onto the WattBike – this was a trial. Working out how to climb onto the bike one legged is, let’s just say, not an elegant manoeuvre and involved belly flopping onto the handle bars. Getting off was also just as comically embarrassing.

I had a daily programme to complete including sending him the watt bike output and any comments. The main task was to ensure that the output of each leg was balanced, that I was flexing my ankle and increasing the time, rating and pressure. 

There were also daily exercises, to be reviewed every week and new exercises set. Every session would be a new challenge to push the joint a little further together with laser therapy and acupuncture. 

I learnt the difference between good pain, the type that you need to push through to get better, and bad pain, the type that says stop and find another route.

All the hard work started to pay off and my flexibility increased swiftly. After a couple of weeks, my calf muscle was starting to slowly return. My ankle flexibility is reduced but I can get the catch. I have also lost my proprioception, which means needing to watch where I place my foot so that I don’t fall over. I’m the one at regattas asking for help to negotiate the steps – I do fall over quite easily.

Six weeks into the physiotherapy I went to visit my weights coach, Dave Perry. He suggested we meet first thing every weekday morning and he started to get my general mobility back on track. I will be forever grateful to him.

These sessions coupled with the physiotherapy really accelerated my recovery. 

Back on the water

15 weeks after surgery was the post operative assessment with the surgeon and I was determined to prove I had met his challenge. So, when called to the consulting room I picked up my crutches and walked, albeit very slowly into the consultation room. The surgeon was amazed, shook my hand, discharged me and said I could row once I made the four months marker…. And that’s exactly what I did. That weekend I got into a single and went for a short paddle. I had really missed the feel of the boat on the water.

Our coach, Steve then set out his water fitness plan. It took a good 12 months of determined training to get fully race fit. Generally, my family don’t come along to events. However, my husband turned up at the Pairs Head and cheered from Hammersmith Bridge – it was emotional. We didn’t win, but just competing was enough.

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