HTO/ACL update: The last post?

I don’t like cricket, oh no….

Finally, ticking off another goal 🦍

So what now?

Can’t quite believe we’re already half way through May - after the 572 days of January, this year is flying past so time for another update and I’ll do my best to keep it brief.

We went away to Pembrokeshire for a week at Easter and it was fabulous. Just the most glorious weather, empty beaches and lots of coast-path walking, scrambling down (small!) cliff faces, and climbing over beach storm defences that simply wouldn’t have been possible just a year ago 🎉

Once we got home, I decided it was time to embark on new activities to break up the monotony of gym life, however varied I try to make it.

Both kids now play cricket, my other half used to and is now getting involved with coaching and, while I can heartily recommend a Friday evening spent watching the kids run around while enjoying a glass of something ‘end of the week’ in the bar, a few of the Mums have been asking me to join the women’s softball team so, a couple of weeks ago, I thought “Why the hell not” and rocked up to give it a go. Having set expectations suitably low (I have no hand-eye co-ordination!), I turned out to be better than I’d expected in the nets - heck the coach was even trying to explain how to play different shots - way beyond my level of ‘just try to hit the ball’ thinking - so now I just have to keep turning up and not start getting too competitive about it. This is for fun, not competition, right? Right?!

Two sessions in, it is throwing up a few new knee challenges, which is definitely what I need. Observations to date:

• Bowling is interesting - a bit of tugging through the joint and aching shin afterwards but it feels pretty stable 

• Fielding was something I didn’t really think about but is giving some more ‘in real life’ challenges to get my head around

  • Sprinting rather than jogging!

  • Dropping to one knee to stop the ball

  • Trying to stop the ball with my feet (without hyperextending the knee or rolling my ankle)

  • Running backwards

Running until this point has been been very slow and controlled, so speed changes, direction changes, unpredictable surfaces etc are a bit of a shock to the system but it seems to be adapting well so far.

Running between the wickets, I’m less keen on 😂 We did a ‘hit and run’ drill last week where you basically had to hit the ball, run to the mark and back and hit again. The ball would come in as quickly as it came back to the bowler, whether you were back at the crease or not, leading to some ‘interesting’ hand switching and improvised reverse sweeps to keep going. I eventually decided, if I was ever going to get my breath back, I’d better get myself out! Honestly, it was like some kind of demonic bleep test. It was a new challenge I was looking for but, note to self, it’s time to working on those sprint intervals on the treadmill!

Ticking off goals (AKA monkey business)

Long-term blog followers will know that going down the Zipline at GoApe was one of my HTO success tests. Why? Simply because by knee gave way at the end of one of these after my Revision ACL surgery, roughly 5.5 years ago. I was cleared to try it in late September last year but haven’t had chance - for various genuine reasons - until this year. And having pinky promised my eldest that I would be brave and do it, I really had to pull my finger out and get on with it. 

A first attempt during our family holiday in Pembrokeshire at Easter didn’t go well. We’d booked a small tree tops course in the locale as the youngest isn’t tall enough to do the bigger courses and I thought it would be a good warm up. I was wrong. Some of the lateral-movement obstacles on the course (skateboard on rails that you can only step onto sideways anyone?) really freaked me out, then I just got uncharacteristically nervous being at height - something that has never happened before. I had the choice to either take the short zipline down or carry on around the full course with more sideways obstacles. With my OH having gone back to the start rather than waiting for me as soon as he’d done the zipline himself, and getting more annoyed and nervous by the minute, I decided to zip down the short line. Job half done but no-way was I going back up to do the other obstacles so I just hung around at ground level while the kids and OH went round again a few times.

I was pretty p1ssed off after that. Not only with basically being left to it, but also trying to rationalise why I had been so damned uncomfortable while I was up there. I’ve always enjoyed these kinds of things and I hated almost every moment. Box not really ticked. Target still to be hit. And now actually scared by the concept of going back to a proper, full-size course at a later date to realise my objective. 

Left to my own devices, I probably wouldn’t have tried again until the summer, at the earliest, but an email from a friend re a date we’d pencilled in to hang out but which I hadn’t yet sorted leave from work for, prompted me to swap my day off and give it another go. It took me until the night before to actually book it - a real sense of ‘this is a really bad idea’ and lack of confidence that I could get round five courses, might render it a pretty expensive a waste of money. But then, we don’t have much chance to hang out without the kids during the week - so finding an alternative would be tricky - and it was just going to hang over me and eat away at me until I tried, whatever the outcome. Fcuk it, tickets booked!

We got there just before 10am - no time to worry - and went through the safety briefing, then on to the course. Each round gets higher above the ground, with more complex obstacles so you can build your confidence as you go and, once I’d got used to clipping on/off I actually started to enjoy it again! Don’t think too far ahead, one obstacle at a time. My friend agreed to go down the ziplines first (didn’t want to be on my own at the bottom if something went wrong!) First one (small) down, all good. And the second, then the longer third zip. Fine. Then four, then five. All done. Landed backwards each time, physio’s words ringing in my head ‘If in doubt, land backside first’ - and I think it was just the last two, longer, higher ziplines that I consciously shifted my weight to the ‘good’ leg to reduce the risk of a giving way episode. 

There were a few sections I found harder than others - climbing the ladders (having enough active knee bend to climb the ladders when they were vertical) and crawling through the hanging barrels (created my own ‘avoid putting weight on the plate’ technique to get through) - but otherwise, it was really pretty good. I could feel a bit of tugging through my knee at times but it never felt like it was going to give way. Also glad I’ve been working on active hamstring strength to get my feet out of the hanging rings without too much faffing about! 

I was surprised how little force actually went through my knee when landing on the ziplines. I’m trying to figure out why it gave way last time I was there. Suffice to say it was probably indicative of just how unstable it used to be that it took so little impact to give way the way it did.

The smile says it all: It's great to be flying again!

Whatever the reasons, that’s finally(!) a goal achieved and more evidence to support the growing confidence in this newly-aligned knee.

My eldest found my ‘course completion medal’ on the table next morning and, after getting over her initial disappointment that I hadn’t taken her with me (didn’t want to her to see it if it all went wrong), I didn’t hesitate to say yes when she asked if we can go again in the summer. Finally ‘Mummy can’t’ is becoming ‘Mummy can’ again. 

So what now?

I think the only goal I’ve got left to complete now is surfing, which I may get chance to do in the summer, depending on where we end up going on holiday. Otherwise, I’m continuing to work on building strength and agility - getting back to ‘real life function’ rather than predictable, single-plane gym movements. 

I’m building the running up slowly - the cartilage in my ‘good knee’ is very clunky and gets sore so I’m trying to manage that conservatively for the moment. Too much outdoor running (ie more than once/week) also seems to trigger back and ankle pain so I’m going very steady, and mixing it up with lower-impact or non-weight bearing cardio and strengthening work in the gym. The HTO leg feels great though! 

So far, so good then. I think I’ll ultimately choose to have the plate out but I’m increasingly confident that is all that will be needed, not the bone grafting and another attempt at a new ACL. Then, hopefully, it’s over and out. 

Maybe, just maybe, this one really is Operation Change the Narrative. Big thanks to my surgical and physio teams, and supportive friends (and family) too, for getting me here 🙌🏻

Previously…