I had spent the weekend up north visiting family, an in-between all of their birthdays sort of occasion. My train was delayed, I was desperate to get home, it was 1am. Somehow, that all collided to make me miss the bottom step of the bus and the culmination of a heavy backpack, the heavier stepping and the bus still slightly moving meant that I fractured my ankle in three places. Having my earphones in didn’t help, as I didn’t hear the cracking that would have told my brain how serious my fall was. I tried to get up of course, expecting it to be a sprain. I’d never broken anything before. My anger rising at the bus driver’s handling of the situation, at the ambulance not coming, at being in the cold for an hour, at a swollen ankle, at myself for being so mindless, at emergency services asking me if anything was broken when I’d not broken anything before... by the time I got to A&E and was left by the taxi driver in a wheelchair on my own facing triage, with the cleaner mopping around me because it was 02:20, seeing that no one else was around, well, I was sobbing. I’d been holding my leg up for an hour because any resting of the foot itself would cause the bones to move. The severity of what had happened had sunk in. The shock had worn away and I was just pissed off.

It all seems a bit of a surreal blur. I’d been x-rayed, sedated and ‘manipulated’, taken to a ward, had blood drawn, had my swelling checked out and taken to surgery within about 7 hours. I woke up to a new metal ankle and a soft cast. The next day I was on crutches and being discharged.

I was terrified of the crutches. Really nervous. One of those big-deep-breath-and-go sorta moments. They’re just not as stable as legs - but then again, my own legs weren’t stable previous to that. I’m a bit more steady now. I’ve been looking at exercises that can be done whilst on crutches to help keep muscle strength. If you’ve read other posts, you’ll see that I’m a hiker. That photo above shows a moment when I had just managed to make myself coffee (on crutches) and realised that the cup said, “I’d rather be on Helvellyn” where I was supposed to be next week. I spent my day in hospital after surgery cancelling trips: the Lake District next week, Wales two weeks after that, Scotland a month later... I’ve left a navigation trip open in June. Mainly because I’ve paid for it so there’s not much I can do... but as a sort of motivation, I’ve not cancelled completely. I’m supposed to walk 62 miles non-stop in July for Oxfam. I know deep down that it’s tough going anyway, so with a technically new ankle, it’ll be even worse. But I can’t give up hope that I’m strong enough to get myself to the point where I can at least do something. So the Peak District navigation trip is far enough away for recovery, but close enough that I can see some sort of light... Of course I would rather be up Helvellyn. But I’d had this feeling that maybe I was being too cocky, pushing myself too much. I have a tattoo that says, “Our steps seal fate”. Well, my steps (or mis-steps) have sealed fate. I either take this as something to slow me down (and maybe it will physically do so), or I take it as a strengthening whereby I err on the side of caution but am more humble about what my body can do.