Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

It always astounds me at how quickly my outlook can change. I’ve had a really positive first week back at home, which was topped off nicely by the visit of, and lunch with HRH The Countess of Wessex.

Luncheon with Royalty!

This positivity continued into the weekend, which included a trip to Windsor in the gorgeous sunshine. I’ve spent the majority of this week at home but on the two occasions I went into Bisham Abbey, where we train as a squad, the irrational, negative or emotional thoughts, or what I call the dark cloud of worry descended.

Still in my anesthetic state and without much energy on my feet, I went to see the team before a pitch session. There were differing reactions to the ‘show and tell’ of my disc fragments but it was great to see them and their support has been and continues to be fantastic. On leaving the pitch though they started the session and I watched a couple of minutes. Now, I’ve been playing hockey for 25 years and successfully recovered from four operations (to date!) and still, that little negative thought of how far there was to go popped into my head. I couldn’t even begin to imagine myself jogging, let alone sprinting whilst pushing and hitting a hockey ball.

I know too well that dealing with thoughts like this is part and parcel of recovering from an injury, if I get them on a good day they’re easy to shrug off, remembering ‘one day at a time’ and move on. If they creep in when things aren’t going so well it can be a completely different ball game altogether. I’ve already apologised to the squad in advance for any sudden, inexplicable bouts of water works or mad moments! On Monday it wasn’t so extreme, and it was saved for the privacy of my own house but that’s how quickly it can turn. Thanks to Kate and Heads Up, it didn’t last very long.

Now they were two very small moments from the past week, the majority was hugely positive. The feeling has started to come back into my right leg and foot, which is encouraging, although it has been replaced by some neural pain, which again is not entirely unexpected, and actually in my head feels like a more normal reaction than a numb leg. My surgeon was also really pleased with everything and happy for me to progress.

I also had my staples out, eighteen in total, which can be viewed below if you like that sort of thing! It was a little more painful than I thought it would be but this really signifies the start, it’s time to move this rehab train forward!

You've Got My Back

The last few days have been a little up and down physically and emotionally. I’ve been very teary on a number of occasions; my Mum tells me that anesthetic can have that effect post surgery. I’m sure that is part of it, along with feeling very tired and not getting a great deal of decent sleep, but I think the over riding common denominator is when my thoughts turn towards the World Cup starting in 88 days.

I’ve had so many amazing messages of support over the last few days. Some have been from complete strangers. Others have been from those who often tweet regular encouragement during tournaments for club and country. The majority though have come from current and ex-teammates, including the best piece of advice from someone who was unfairly hampered by injury throughout her career. She simply said “One day, one session at a time”. It sounds like such a simple concept but it’s so hard to do, especially I find right at the start when you have a lot of time to sit and think. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at my calendar and counted the number of weeks it is until the World Cup and compared this to my recovery time from last year. I think it’s understandable, yet know it’s completely unhelpful. I know I can only do what I can do, obviously I will be pushing it to the limits but my mantra for the foreseeable future will be ‘one day at a time’.

Physically I don’t feel too bad, my back feels stiff and it’s frustrating not being able to stretch it out but the pain is manageable. The numbness in my right leg and foot is constantly at the back of my mind. My calf was twitching like crazy last night, which I was desperately convincing myself was a good sign. I’ve been given a few mobility and core exercises from the hospital physio and other than going for short walks, there’s little else I can do.

My overriding comfort throughout the good and the bad over the last week has been the tremendous amount of support. I know I can’t get through this by myself and I can’t thank everyone enough for the emails, texts, tweets, Facebook messages and comments on my blog. They all help, every single one of them. In the email I sent to the current GB squad explaining my impending operation, I used this quote…

“When the mind says give up, hope whispers one more try.” Anonymous

I know this is going to be a battle, but where hope remains, my heart will never give up.

In the meantime I’m loving Ellen DeGeneres’ app. Heads Up! It’s providing much hilarity at times when it’s very much needed. Laughter, after all, is the best medicine.

Clearly my Dad has not seen Star Wars!

Disc Wars: Surgeon Strikes Back

*WARNING - BLOG CONTAINS SLIGHTLY GRUESOME IMAGES*

So here it is, what I like to call the pesky crayfish causing havoc floating around my spinal cord! No wonder I was in a fair amount of pain…

L4/5 disc fragments removed during surgery

I was hoping to blog yesterday but I was completely out of it from the all the anesthetic, morphine and antibiotics. Then after managing to get a bit of roast beef and mash down me, in a sleepy haze and still drugged up to the max I started to feel slightly nauseas. The nurse clearly underestimated my ability to vomit so handed me the small sick bowl, he must’ve thought small girl, small amount of vomit. As the feeling rose I quickly grabbed the bigger, bed pan tray off the side, once he saw the tsunami that ensued covering all the sides, he left me to it!

The operation itself went as well as could’ve been expected. Although at one point I didn’t even think I’d get it done yesterday. The hospital policy says all patients must be tested for MRSA, something that they’d forgotten to do when they admitted me. With me lying on the trolley waiting to go into theatre I could hear mutterings in the corridor to the tune of ‘she shouldn’t even be down here’, and ‘how could you have forgotten’. Waiting for surgery is stressful enough as it is; I can assure you, this didn’t help one bit.

Once again, thankfully it turned out to be okay. A positive result would only change their post surgical procedures so they took a swab, I was given antibiotics as a precaution and once they got the result I would still be in theatre leaving them the ability to change anything if they needed to. As it turns out, they didn’t.

One of the things I’ve found hardest to deal with during past injuries has been the completely irrational thoughts that seem to unwittingly hijack my mind from time to time. This is undoubtedly no different this time and it seems the night and weekends (when doctors and physiotherapists are less readily available) are when it’s most likely to take hold. Last night when I was lying in bed my right foot and leg started to go numb. Cue irrational thoughts. Or are they irrational? This one potentially isn’t but I’ll be sure to let you know what I mean over the coming weeks. During the operation my surgeon had to move my nerve around quite a bit and it was very tight in there, a completely rational answer for what I was feeling; but I didn’t know that at the time!

The little bit gruesome scar and drains...

The VERY gruesome paper pants!

Back to the Future

Tomorrow I’m having surgery on my back. To be honest, now that I’m less than twelve hours away, I’m a little bit scared.

In contrast, since finding out the results of my MRI scan three days ago all of my thoughts have been wishing away the time, wanting it to speed up so I could get this operation over and done with and crack on with my rehab. Every day waiting I considered a wasted day, another day taken off the other side in my race to be fit for the Hockey World Cup starting in 93 days.

Unfortunately I’m no stranger to back problems, and this will be the second operation on my back. Just eleven months ago the disc that sits between L4 and L5 in the vertebrae decided to finally give up after having been prolapsed since 2006. By giving up I mean it ruptured, and the exploding fragments started causing havoc by floating around my spinal cord and pressing on the nerves going down my legs. The pain was just excruciating, a dull ache lingered constantly all the way down to my calf. A sharp pain intermittently made it impossible to get comfortable, leaving me tired, drained and often brought to tears.

After four months I successfully made it back to playing hockey, but now it seems the same thing has happened. When the doctor called me with the results I completely and utterly lost it. I was in physio and I don’t think she knew what to make of me. With tears streaming down my face all I was thinking was, that’s it, my career’s over, I’ll never play again!

As it turns out there was some confusion over which disc had ruptured. It was confirmed the next day (after a really bad nights sleep) that it was in fact the same disc as last time, I literally breathed a sigh of relief and sensed another rehab challenge on my hands.

With just one more sleep to go my thoughts move away from rehab and anything to do with hockey. It’s weird really, I guess it’s because it’s back surgery, it makes it feel a bit more serious. All I want is for it to be okay, for my surgeon to say to me when I come round that it all went to plan and I can start to rebuild once again.

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