……have been greatly exaggerated.

It was the proverbial “kiss of death”; no sooner had I renewed my blog subscription and made a vow to post more regularly on this glorious site did I then end up having yet another fight with a car. Unbelievable.

A total schmuck decided to careen into me whilst I was established on a roundabout and pushed my leg up against my exhaust with his car; thus fracturing my ankle in two places. I was refused an ambulance given that I’d ridden home after the event and my injuries were not life threatening, my sister swiftly took me to A&E and a doctor decided in his wisdom to pop a plaster cast over my leg from the base of my toes right up to the knee.

This was all great until I realised that they had popped the cast over the friction burn that ran the full length of my shin without dressing it. I can still remember the pain when the cast had to come off two days later when I was referred to the fracture clinic. Ouch.

After my consultant reviewed my x-rays and stuff he encouraged me to wear a stirrup support instead of another plaster cast on the basis that that my fractures were reasonably minor and the main issue appeared to be both swelling and the ‘soft tissue crush’ injury. So I went home.

Excruciating pain followed for the next few days, everytime time I stood up on one leg and dangled the bad one whilst using the crutches I got a severe shooting pain down the damaged one, I tried strapping it, took pain medication regularly; all to no avail. In the end I just laid in bed feeling rather sorry for myself.

Being a very independant chap I suddenly felt trapped, helpless actually and could no longer rely on escaping using my trusty bike when I fancied doing so. I quickly consumed my favourite t.v. shows as they aired; the last ever episode of ‘Monk’ that capped things off nicely, the season finale of ‘Dexter’ with it’s funky twist and of course who can forget daily showings of ‘Diagnosis Murder’.

In reflection, I think that I temporarily become a couch potato? Well, a bed potato at the very least.

Frustrated from lack of sleep and mobility I eventually returned to St Helier hospital the following week to demand better support for my poorely peg and was given a rather fancy inflatable brace support which the nice man in the hospital called the ‘David Beckham Boot’; appropriately named because he wore one when his leg got chuffed. This cheered me up a lot, I could immediately get about a lot more and began to laugh off the the last two weeks of my personal living hell.

The consultant had originally signed me off for 6 weeks, I spoke to my G.P. and used my rather funky powers of pursuasion to get it down to 2 weeks; finally returning to work on Monday, 7th of December, 2009.

This week, I’m happy to report that the swelling has gone down an encouraging amount, the bruising has also begun to vanish and I’ve stopped using the crutches; I even managed to hobble into Croydon high street today to do some Christmas shopping. I do realise that I am rather fortunate not to be injured more than I am, and appreciate that there are a lot of people worse off than I; however, suffice to say that I will be glad when this is all behind me.

I would like to say thanks to David and Jane for managing to get me over to theirs for Sunday lunch before the Monday I returned to work; Ray for chauffeuring me around since I went back to the office and to all my well-wishers.

The healing powers of playing xbox with a good friend and receiving regular texts/phonecalls and messages online are quite underestimated believe me; therefore special thanks go to Angelo and Dave for coming over and cheering me up considerably.

My biggest thanks go to Brian and Lorraine for being there as always when I needed them, and Mumsie who looked after me tirelessly and made me scrambled eggs on toast at 8pm. Goodness, this post is as self indulgent as an Oscar acceptance speech but I want to record my appreciation, so fuck off if you don’t like it.

So there we are, I’m on the path to recovery. Bring on Christmas!