My Broken Wing.......

It’s a strange feeling coming round from surgery…like waking from a very deep hungover sleep, wondering where the hell you are, and why part of your body feels a bit strange….so it was as I awoke last Thursday after a couple of hours of anaesthesia whilst my shoulder was being put back together. The last thing I remember after walking to the theatre room and lying down on the bed was an achy feeling spreading through my hand and up my arm and then a funny taste in my mouth, then next thing I know I was waking up feeling groggy, slowly realising I was in a hospital bed and as I tried to move, my shoulder felt restricted. I could see it was covered in dressings, held in a sling, and also looked massively swollen.  Ah yes, the memory became clear…I’d just had surgery! The good thing was at least they’d operated on the correct one!

To be honest that first day is a bit of a blur…. after the anaesthetic drug induced light-headedness, I remember having an incredibly dry mouth, a completely unquenchable thirst, drier than the Sahara in a dust-storm, and drinking endless glasses of water. I can remember the pain setting in and asking for painkillers, being given paracetemol and thinking hmmm…don’t think this is going to help much! The struggle to get dressed with a heavy, painful and unusable arm…and how  awkward it felt to move without causing intense discomfort. And most of all, the dawning realisation of what life is going to be like for a while…..I could feel my mood descending lower despite my best efforts to be positive.

My Surgeon came in and reported all had gone well, although there had been significantly more damage than was evident on my scan. Not only had I had the planned bankart repair to my anterior labrum (anterior stabilisation), he’d also found a reverse bankart tear, as well as a SLAP tear and that as a result of these the whole capsule had shifted to the wrong position. These were all repaired during the surgery, so at least I got my money’s worth! And also at least it was all found and fixed early rather than have years of problems and pain and damaging the joint further. I know that’s a good thing, and that undiscovered, these injuries would have prevented my shoulder from ever functioning normally again….so I should be glad. It’s just quite hard to feel like that currently. The news that the surgery had been a lot bigger than planned only added to how down I was already feeling.

It still baffles me how I sustained so much damage from such a small crash, but hey ho, it is what it is. The ex-physio in me has a need to know what’s been done to my body, so I can understand why it hurts so much and where, and how I can do everything as well as possible to ensure I heal as well as I can. Unfortunately this also means I understand what a massive invasion on a sensitive and important part of my body this is….i can’t help but worry about how much it’ll impact my shoulder in the future...

Here’s a bit of anatomy so you can see what has broken, and been repaired, inside my poor little shoulder…

Anatomy of the shoulder socket [www.shoulderdoc.co.uk]

The damage is to the fibrous cartilage ring called the Labrum, which encircles the shallow socket of the shoulder, providing a lot of the stability in a joint which is inherently unstable. 

Unfortunately when you dislocate a joint, stuff gets damaged…you wouldn’t be able to dislocate it if it didn’t. Whilst broken bones heal, cartilage doesn’t, and so if the damage is substantial, surgery is required to repair it. You can choose not to have this, but without an intact labrum, there is 50% less stability in the joint, and if your job or lifestyle involves overhead movement, weight bearing, or manual work, then the risk of redislocation, pain on movement, and the joint never regaining full strength is high. 

Add to this the fact that continued dislocations, and the joint not working biomechanically as it should for many years will lead to arthritis, and it’s a no-brainer for me to have had surgery….despite the pain it currently is causing me!

www.shoulderdoc.co.uk

If you imagine the shoulder socket, the glenoid cavity, as a clock face, my labrum was torn off from 4 o clock to 12 o clock…ie 270 degrees.

When a tear is to the 3-6 o clock position, at the front of the joint (anterior), it is called a Bankart tear. If the labrum pulls off the edge of the bone with it as mine did, it's called an ALPSA lesion (Anterior labral periosteal sleeve avulsion)

When the tear involves the 11-1 o clock position, and the point where the Biceps tendon attaches to the labrum, it is called a SLAP tear (superior labrum, from anterior to posterior)

When the tear is in the 6-9 o clock position it’s known as a reverse Bankart tear.

All images above www.shoulderdoc.co.uk

My tear was a combination of a bankart, reverse bankart, and SLAP, a bit like the one shown here.

www.fxrxinc.com

When you see what has actually been done inside your joint, it explains the pain and swelling….3 incisions made for the arthroscope and surgical tools, 6 anchors that are a little bit like miniature expansion bolts drilled into the bone of the shoulder socket, sutures wrapped around the torn labrum (ring of cartilage) and used to tie it back in place, as well as a few extra stitches/overlaps to pull the capsule into the correct place….yes, all that is as painful as it sounds. It certainly feels like someone has screwed nails into the bone on the inside of my joint….in a way that’s exactly what they’ve done!

The picture below shows a labral repair being done in a similar way to mine, except I have 6 anchors spread out pretty much all the way round the glenoid.

http://www.slideshare.net/drnaula/lt0520-d-peek-biopushlock-knotless-anchor-for-bankart-repair

I don’t think I’d prepared myself for how much it was going to hurt post-op, but then I didn’t expect to be having so much drilling, tying, fixing, and poking around done in there either! As the local anaesthetic that had been injected in the joint wore off and the pain from having my poor shoulder thoroughly messed around with kicked in, it was stupidly painful. The paracetomol and codeine I was given did absolutely nothing, and for the rest of the day and all of the night, I suffered with intense pain and a complete inability to get comfortable. I spent hours pacing around, lying, then sitting, then reading, then watching a film, then repeating, all night.

Swollen painful arm one day post-op

The next day I hit a thoroughly low point…as the fatigue from lack of sleep, recovery of my body from the anaesthetic, intense, unrelenting pain, and realisation of how long the recovery is going to take all got to me….I'm a positive person by nature, but I lost it all that day. 

I cried, a lot….from pain, frustration, and anxiety that my shoulder will never be as strong or as good as it was before. I realise it won’t ever be the same, but will I still be able to climb, swim, ride, do yoga, throw a ball, pick my bike up, carry on with all the things I love, without it feeling like I can’t move it in the way I need to do these things? I hope so…At the moment it feels like I will never have the full use or function of it again….

 After the first day and 24 hours of almost unbearable pain, I took the drugs I’d saved from post-op in Canada a few years ago….I hadn’t really needed them there but boy did I need them now. They aren’t licensed in the UK but I’m so glad I had them…along with ice every 2 hours, the pain started to recede a little and I at least got a bit of sleep.

I’ve had lots of injuries and broken bones before, and some surgery, but an injury to your shoulder, and on your dominant side as well, I’m learning is much worse….it’s such a fundamental part of your body, in everything you do, that you don’t realise it until its totally unusable.

Scrambling down from the Squamish Chief a couple of days after hand surgery in 2011....this experience has been very different!

My right shoulder and I have had an awesome relationship the last 34 years….I’m only now appreciating how amazing she is, and how well we’ve got on. From relying on her to pull me effortlessly through water in hours of swimming training and racing, power up and through overhanging walls of rock, carry bikes, perform handstands, back flips, climb trees, build things,, drive cars, to the things I’ve taken even more for granted….brushing my hair, eating, dressing, hugging friends, picking up a cup of tea, writing, rolling over in bed. I realise now there is not a single task I don’t rely on her for throughout each and every day, or where she is not somehow involved. Even things like walking, she’s moving a little bit to balance, or standing still, I constantly adjust her or use her for expressions without realising…..Until now. 

I know I've got another shoulder, but we don’t have the same relationship…..its not her I automatically turn to for every single thing each day. I’ve also never had an injury that took me out of sport for longer than 5 or 6 weeks…it’s already 6 weeks since I dislocated my shoulder, and recovery from this surgery is at least another 12….realistically I’m bracing myself for being told it’ll be longer…..I hope my mental strength can hold out that long.

In my lowest moments since the op, I've missed Gareth more than ever. His giant hugs and the way he made everything feel like it'd be ok in the end I could really have done with at many times in the last week. He was there through all the other injuries I’ve ever had, and I feel like it’s a much harder challenge facing this alone than any of those felt. The day of my op was 4 years to the day since Gareth's accident, and whilst I didn't have chance to dwell much on that this year due to being in surgery or recovering from it, I'm know how low I've felt in the week since is partly down to thinking of those traumatic 10 days following his accident.

Bored, in pain, and feeling pretty rubbish!

By day 3 I'd imagined the pain was going to have settled, especially with the Canadian drugs I'd taken....It hadn't. Another night of little sleep and day of intense pain that didn't seem to be easing at all. I kept telling myself it was bound to be painful after what had been done to it, and I just needed to man up and get on with things....but I was sliding further into depression. I'm used to pushing my body through physical pain, carrying on when everything is telling you to stop, it comes with the territory in many of the sports I've done over the years. I managed to ride a whole season last year with 3 breaks in a bone in my hand....it was painful, but tolerable. But the pain from my shoulder has been on another level. It was relentless, doing anything I felt miserable, and everyday tasks were taking forever. Reading, watching films, wandering round in a drugged haze from room to room for a change of scenery, never able to find a comfortable spot but trying all the same. My days were governed by the times I could take the next drugs, even though they gave little relief, or by the next time I could put my magic “cryo-cuff” ice bag on my shoulder for some more temporary relief. I felt like an old person, shuffling round, trying to move as little as possible. In bed I slept, or at least tried to, with 4 pillows propping me up into a sitting position,with another pillow behind the right arm to stop the weight of the rested arm tugging or resting on the places where the drilling and stitching has been done.

I was exhausted, weepy, nauseous, achy, and felt like I was wandering around in a slightly detached world from the rest of reality. 

It was impossible not to get down about things…the road to full function and recovery stretched a seemingly endless distance ahead, and the thought of how far away doing any of the things I love and that keep me happy are, was scary. I felt myself becoming anxious that something was wrong, an infection, one of the bone screws pulled loose...the thought of having to face even more pain was too hard to think about….

By day 4 I'd reached breaking point. I couldn't stop bursting into tears, I felt so low, it’s a long time since I’ve felt like I can’t see an exit from feeling so down, but at that point, that's exactly how I felt.

After breaking down in tears of pain for the hundredth time since the op, my mum and a couple of other friends suggested I should ring Mr Walton’s surgical team to check whether this amount of intense pain was normal for this long post op, and showing no signs of easing. The nurse on the phone was fantastic, even though she probably struggled to understand me blubbing away. She agreed I shouldn’t be in so much pain, and whilst it may just be a case of not being given strong enough painkillers to deal with the pain of the first few days, which has never been brought under control, it could be an infection in the arthroscopy sites or some other damage….certainly worth a check with Mr Walton. 

An hour later I was seen and checked over. The op sites are healing fine, the arm is moving as it should, everything is going to plan, and it's bound to be painful after what's been done…I just needed stronger painkillers to take the edge off it.....if only I'd been given them from the start!! 

Massively reassured  by my lovely surgeon, and armed with some tramadol, I left feeling less worried, and within 10 minutes of taking the drugs, in blissfully less pain for the first time since the operation. Suddenly life didn’t feel so bad, I felt more acceptance of my current situation, and able to deal with the long road ahead, now I wasn’t in agony every minute of the day. 

It’s amazing how much pain impacts on you and your mental state. Now the pain is at a more tolerable much lower level, I feel so much better in myself, I don’t feel like bursting into tears every other minute, and I am calm and relaxed about having to rest and be patient….

Drugs....a concoction of which are coursing through my body each day!

It is like a switch has been flicked and life is ok again!

I had been putting up with such high levels of pain thinking I was just being a wuss, and I had to man up and deal with it….when actually if I’d just asked for stronger drugs at the start the pain would not have spiralled out of control and got myself into the state of chronic pain and depression I was in…oh well, lesson learned. Hopefully from here I am back on track.

It's now a week post-op, I've been able to walk for an hour or so each day, and start a routine of core work sitting on the gym ball, and a few lower limb stretches, gradually introducing my body back to exercise and moving in the way it’s used to! It felt good, I can’t describe how much my mental state has improved since getting the pain under control! 

This last week is one I'll be glad to put behind me, but like any experience, good or bad, there are things to learn from it. I’m so active normally that I expected to bounce back straight after surgery, but I’m learning that whilst the scars from keyhole surgery will eventually be small, what has been done to my body and how much it has to try and heal itself internally is massive. The effect of a general anaesthetic I’m realising is significant too…2 hours of anaesthetic gases will take up to 2 weeks for my body to fully recover from I’m told, and the strong drugs, whilst now keeping the pain under control, are leaving me feeling like a bit of a space-cadet! I did not think this would be the way I felt…with plans for walking the day after the op, the bike set up on the turbo trainer ready…..maybe things would have been a little less tough if I'd got the pain under control from the start, but even so, I completely underestimated the effect of the surgery on my usually bouncy self. I know my body will tell me when it's ready to get back to doing more, but at the moment it’s telling me it can't do much except rest, relax and heal....and (maybe thanks to the drugs?!)....I'm ok with that for now.....

The Ups and Downs of a Summer in the Mountains!

Looking back at my previous posts it seems the last time I sat down to write was early June! It has been a really busy summer (in a good way!) with less time than ever to sit and put pen to paper, and on the short occasions when I have, it has been to write blog posts for one of the companies that support me.  Have a read here if you’re interested!

The World's best MTB Destinations

Staying motivated whilst injured

But finally the season is at an end, and I have time to sit down and write ….although I have to say it’s not entirely in the way I’d have wanted!

With just 7 days of guiding to go until the finish of the season, I took a little tumble. When I say little, I mean the slowest speed, smallest, softest little crash I’ve ever had. I could literally throw myself off my chair as I sit and type this and land harder on the ground than I fell off my bike.

Oops....

Minutes from the road on the way to lunch, after another awesome morning out on some beautiful but challenging trails, I managed to let my front wheel come up against a small rock hidden under the blanket of fallen autumn leaves on a trail I’ve ridden dozens of times before, and it slowly tipped me over the bars. A careless mistake from a body and brain tired at the end of a long season….in all-likelihood, if I’d been riding faster, it probably wouldn’t have happened, as my speed and momentum would have carried me through. But I was guiding, and as a guide, you ride at the pace of your group.

Inconspicuous trails, always the places where accidents happen....(It wasn't this one by the way!)

Now, going over the bars might sound alarming if you’re not a mountain biker, but believe me, it’s a fairly frequent occurrence when you ride technically tricky trails, and normally results in a few grazes and bruises, some banter from the people you are riding with, and a bruised ego for all of about 5 minutes. Then you get back up and carry on, forgetting it even happened.

Over the years I’ve been riding, I’ve had high speed crashes where you know whilst you’re in the air that hitting the ground is going to hurt, big tumbles that scare you and require a little sit down to recompose yourself, and heavy landings on big rocks where you get up and can’t believe you’ve got away without damaging yourself more. And yet this crash was none of those. I expected to get up and walk away…in fact I did get straight up, having not really felt anything when I’d landed and “tucked and rolled”, thinking “Well that was a daft little crash!”. It was then I noticed my right shoulder felt a bit weird….

A glance down at it confirmed that it was indeed looking a bit weird too, in fact the ex-physio in me kicked in immediately as I recognised it was dislocated…..bugger.

At least I'm in good company...turns out there're plenty of MTB pros who've dislocated shoulders in the past!

Unfortunately I couldn’t relocate it myself, and my main priority was to get my group safely down to lunch before the pain started to kick in, which I knew it would. My group were brilliant, did exactly as I asked, and told me afterwards they couldn’t believe how calm, and in control I’d remained despite clearly having part of my body in a position it should never normally be in! It was a good job they didn’t see me an hour later, lying in the back of an ambulance, alternately screaming, swearing and groaning with the most intense and all-consuming pain I’d ever felt in my life…I definitely didn’t look calm or in-control then! To my dismay, the paramedics would not relocate my shoulder, and anyone who’s had this injury knows the pain gets worse the longer it has been out, as the muscles around it spasm and pull it harder, pushing the wrong bits of joint against each other. It was complete agony…I never want to experience pain like it again! Morphine and Gas and Air were having absolutely zero effect at all, and my hand was losing circulation. Faced with another 2 hour drive in an ambulance when every little bump sent nauseating pain coursing through me, I just would have done anything at that point to get the pain to stop. Amazingly I was still understanding and speaking in French despite thinking I couldn’t focus on anything except how much pain I was in…guess my language skills are continuing to improve then!

At some point around about 90 minutes after I’d had the crash, I heard a helicopter arrive nearby and the next thing I remember was a doctor entering the ambulance and telling me he was going to put me to sleep and put my shoulder back in….I could have hugged him (if I hadn’t been unable to move or even open my eyes due to the pain!) I have no idea what they use to put you to sleep but I remember nothing except slowly coming around and seeing and hearing things that seemed really kaleidoscopic and distant and blurry…must have been some good drugs! Anyway, when my vision cleared I realised I was lying down in a helicopter and my shoulder was no longer hurting….possibly the most amazing realisation ever after the mind-numbing pain I’d been in before!

(NOT my helicopter, or even in France!....turns out getting a ride in a chopper when you're injured is nowhere near as fun as when you've chosen to go up in one!)

Anyway, a quick x-ray to check it was back in the right place, and instructions to wear the sling I’d been given and keep the arm immobilised for a few weeks until I could see an Orthopaedic consultant in the UK, and I was allowed out of the hospital. I must have looked a bit of a sight, still in riding clothing and my knee pads still on, with a slightly vacant and spaced out look after the concoction of strong drugs I’d been given in a short space of time!

Back in it's rightful place! Medics...spot the damage!

Aside from feeling bad about being unable to work the last week of guiding for Ash and Melissa at Trans-Provence, I was able to relax and get used to using my left hand for daily tasks whilst in the sun of southern France. My pain was kept under control with a concoction of red wine and codeine, and to be honest I was ready for a bit of a rest at the end of a season so didn’t feel any desire to be out on my bike (I’m not sure how long that will last….) I did lots of walking to stay sane, enjoying the autumn sunshine and changing colours, and thinking about things whilst drinking coffee in the sun…there are definitely worse places to be convalescing! I was lucky to be able to stay with Ash and Melissa, who looked after me and made me very welcome whilst I waited for my awesome dad to fly out and rescue me by driving me and my van back home!

Exploring Sospel's hidden streets whilst injured

So, injuries suck, and it’s frustrating that such a small tumble could have such a big consequence, but as the French say "C’est la vie". With the job I have, I’ve done pretty well to avoid any big injuries up to now….this one is just mildly frustrating that I don’t even have a story of the gnarly riding I was doing when it happened…I must start concocting something for when I’m recounting it in years to come! As Gareth always said whenever I hurt myself before…”It could have been worse” and eventually “I’ll be alright”.

Things are always more obvious in retrospect, and I guess as I’d been thinking about getting private medical insurance for a while, I should have done it ages ago. The NHS is great and we’re lucky to have free healthcare, but it has it’s limitations, and when you are a self employed person who relies on a high level of functional use of their body for their livelihood, and life enjoyment, you cannot afford to wait months for appointments, or go with the “we’ll leave it and wait and see what other problems you have with it in the next few years” approach that unfortunately the doctors I saw seemed to have.

Hmmm...it could be some time before I can do this again!

You need a prognosis promptly, and to take action quickly to allow yourself to recover and get on with life. The knowledge I have from formerly working as a physio meant I knew as soon as I dislocated my shoulder, I needed a scan to know what the damage was inside the joint, and the likelihood therefore of it healing to the point of being able to continue doing all the things I do without further instability and dislocations, or not. When I managed to arrange this privately through the specialist sports physio that I eventually saw, it confirmed that surgery is the best option, and the sooner the better. Current NHS waiting times for the surgery I need extend until next February/March but waiting until the start of my main summer season for treatment is not even an option when I can have something done immediately and be hopefully able to work again next season. So any savings I might have put aside this year are now being spent on getting my shoulder fixed to the level I need it to be able to work in the future. It’s a lot of money but what’s the point in having savings if you don’t use them to pay for something that will enhance your life, and your happiness! As I write this I’m waiting for my surgery tomorrow, and will then start the 3 month recovery process, which by my reckoning should still allow for a little bit of winter mountain fun before starting the biking season.

Chloe enjoying amazing conditions on a walk up Snowdon....I may be injured but my legs still let me get into the hills!

The plans I’d made for this Winter are therefore on hold and I’m trying to think of things to keep me busy that can be done with one arm…any one who knows me knows how difficult that’s going to be! At least I’ll be able to walk, and I’ve already rigged up a static bike trainer that I can use one armed! 5 weeks on from the dislocation, with religiously doing my rehab exercises (it helps having been a physio and having a bit of knowledge!), I can actually do quite a lot again with my arm currently, (although I am still weaker than a baby kitten)….although all that will change obviously when I go under the knife!

Walking & taking photos....soon to become the things that will keep me sane through the winter!

Back to the summer though, and what a great one it was, full of fun trips and guests and with incredibly dry, hot sunny weather.

The TP was once again one of the best weeks of the year. I was the sweeper and sign-clearer this year, so got to ride the whole route, following at the back of everyone.

Clear views behind when you're riding at the back1

It was great to have a Mountain staff role, although I found the job harder than actually racing the event! All the stop-starting, the weight of the bag with all the signs and tape in, and the combination of a very hot week in which lots of racers suffered, meaning very long days out as the last person on the hill, combined to make it a tough week. I’ve already agreed to go back next year as Mountain staff again though….it’s such a fantastic week I can’t stay away!

The usual obligatory epicness of the TP!

 After the race I spent July working for Ben Jones in the Savoie. The riding here is very different to the Southern Alps but it’s just as fun, and the scenery is stunning in a different way.

High on a col above Valfrejus

Snow and glacier capped mountains, including Mont Blanc, are visible most days, and there is a lot of open flowing singletrack through high alpine meadows where you’re accompanied by the sound of cow bells from the cattle grazing on their high pastures. It’s not a bad place to call your office that’s for sure! The weather was stupidly hot which made some of the big climbs we do over high cols pretty hard, and even the fittest guests suffered.

Mont Blanc standing guard above the Chamonix valley

One of the nice things about working out of Chamonix is that each Saturday there’s a day off, as guests can make their own way to and from the airport with the multiple companies offering transfers, instead of us having to do it. I took the opportunity to get into some open water swimming with Alison, a friend who lives in the Chamonix Valley, who was training for a 10km swim later in the year. We headed down to the beautifully scenic lake at Passy each week and swum a few kilometre laps. I haven’t swum like that for years and I was reminded of the sheer joy of the sensation of moving smoothly through the water that I used to love about swimming. I’m not as strong or fast as I used to be but it was nice to find my technique is still pretty good and I could comfortably manage a 4km swim without using too much energy. I love swimming outdoors, and would definitely like to do more of it, my only problem is that I’m terrible at swimming in a straight line! Years of following the lines on the bottom of a pool means when I’ve got nothing to follow it turns out I swim all over the place! I did manage to get a little bit better at “sighting” after a few swims with Ali, but it still feels quite unnatural!

Alison on the summit of the Grande Floria

After 5 weeks working with Ben, I took a bit of time off to go climbing in Orpierre with Jonny, Jo and Simon and Team Chaos (aka Ellie and Jessie), as we have done for the last few years. Once again it was an awesome week and a half of croissants and coffee, swimming at the reservoir or the gorge, afternoon cranking on the routes at the crag, and tasty dinners eaten outdoors with large quantities of red wine, followed by star watching in the amazingly dark skies above the gite we rented. A perfect rest and holiday with great friends, in a place that's also full of incredible memories of the long hot summers Gareth and I spent there together....next year's trip there is already being planned!

Yes that does say 47 degrees.....it was hot like this all summer!!!

Feeling refreshed, I then headed back to TransProvence Country. Again it was still hot and dry but a bit more tolerable! The route from this year’s race is in my opinion the best ever, and it was fantastic to get to ride the trails each week…they are the kind you never get tired of!

My office view....

It was also really nice to see how different they looked at the end of summer as opposed to the start. Each week the leaves were changing to the most beautiful autumn colours and the long grass was dried out, golden and shimmering in the breeze.

Just another mildly distracting piece of scenery to stop and stare at!

The last week that I worked we even had some snow flakes falling and the tops of the nearby hills covered in a dusting of snow, showing the seasons were changing. I was really tired by this point though, and in retrospect that’s maybe why I crashed. In previous years we have guided half day on, half a day off, or sometimes a day on/off, but this year we guided all day every day which starts to become a bit too much on a tough trip like the TP when you have done it 4 weeks in a row. The physical tiredness I can deal with, it’s the concentration and mental fatigue that I think caused my crash.

First snow dusting of the year...Norwegians and Swedes feeling right at home!

I did have lots of plans for an Autumn of enjoying myself after working hard all summer, but I guess that’s not to be this year….or well it is, but just in a different way!  

It’s funny how life has a way of bringing you down when you’re up….a reminder that we have less control of our life than we think, we just need to go with the flow, and deal with whatever life throws at you as it arises, and remember that sometimes opportunities can arise out of life circumstances that you could not have predicted before. We all face tough or difficult times in our lives at certain points, but it’s how we choose to approach them that leads to whether anything positive can come out of a potentially negative experience.

There are worse times to be injured in terms of the working year, but from a personal point of view it’s not the best. November is a tough month anyway…one that leaves me feeling down, on the edge of tears many days, and with a veil of sadness, remembering that whilst I’ve rebuilt a life I love, it’s not the one I really wanted to be living, at least not without Gareth here with me. I miss him most at this time of year, as I’m reminded of the events of 4 years ago and how perfect and carefree our lives were to that point.

I’ve thought a lot over the past four years, what it would be like the first time I injured myself without Gareth being around…How I’d cope without his support? Well, it’s been ok. I’m lucky to have a fantastic relationship with my mum and dad, who help me out in so many ways more than I could ever ask for, as well as a wonderful support network of friends all over the place. Of course none of these is the same as having your husband there, and I know I’ll miss his support through my recovery, and the reassurance I used to feel from him…the companionship that a close partner gives you can not be replaced. When someone knows you so well they know exactly the right words or actions or gestures that will help at any given time. I miss that most…

But in a way it feels like he is still here.

Happy days together in the mountains...

Not in a physical way, which obviously would be the best way possible, but because I can remember and imagine what he’d be saying, what his advice would be, the banter and jokes….and because I know  I’m stronger as a person because of everything he taught me and that I learned from him. Our relationship and love was so strong that I’m learning I will still be able to feel that in so many different ways as I go through the rest of my life. His spirit and the energy he had when he was alive, I can sense so many times a day, in so many of the things I do….and that gives me the inner strength and reassurance to know that things will always be alright, one way or another….

Hoping normal function can resume soon!

Well, here’s to a fun and busy early winter that will be somewhat different from planned but hopefully still full of new experiences and a new and improved shoulder!

As ever I’m massively grateful to Juliana Bicycles, Sram, Invisiframe, Sweet Protection and Bikmo Insurance for their support throughout this season. I’ve also been using some Maloja casual clothing this summer which I love. It’s a small but great brand with a huge range of high quality women’s clothing which is really refreshing and nice to find, and I hope I can continue as an ambassador for them into next year!

Summer mountain dreaming already!