Time to hang the washing out, all set and ready for another day!

Recovery isnt much fun, but Ive been preparing for this for a while. My wrist has been giving me quite a bit of trouble for over two years now. I did a good bit of damage crashing my bike on the first night of my first Godzone in Kaikoura. I really did myself over in that race, apart from a very sore wrist, I was nursing a concussion, had suspected broken rib/ribs, a sore shoulder, sore neck, numerous wounds including a cut that got a bit infected and a whole lot of tiredness that goes along with pushing yourself to the limit and then there  was the sleep deprivation on top of that. In short, I was pretty run down and it took a while to come back to somewhere near normal. I had my wrist x-rayed at the time, which showed nothing sinister so life went back to normal, and the pain just became part and parcel with it.

Roll on Godzone 2015, up on the Brewster Glacier (actually just the terminal face because of the weather…) I slipped on the smooth, wet rocks. Naturally I stuck my hand out to help brace myself as I hit the rock. Something went a bit funny here and it felt like my wrist wasn’t quite sitting right. I gave the joint a good squeeze and the pain significantly was reduced. Godzone didnt quite go to plan, but my wrist made it through alright. This time however this wasnt the end of it and the pain didnt go away so it was back to the doctor…

After bouncing backwards and forwards from doctor to Specialist to Surgeon, to Specialist, a couple of cortisone injections, Luxmore Grunt and a One day Coast to Coast effort, surgery became the next option. Lucky enough I managed to fit it in to coincide with the end of daylight saving, so I got to make the most of the sunshine and still was able to go to nationals!

The 1st of April (in the morning too), I went in for Arthroscopic surgery for a suspected tear and repair of my Triangular Fibro-Cartilage Complex (TFCC). The wrist joint was still reasonably stable which the Surgeon was suspicious of, especially after the MRI didn’t show up anything obvious. But once she was able to get a good look around inside she found what she later described to me as a “good” peripheral tear of the TFC. She repaired the tear and when I came around from the anesthetic  I quickly realised I had a cast on, right up around the elbow! Now I and 2 weeks down of 6 in a brace, with some more weeks after that of easing back into things.

TFCC Tears

Resting up with the cast on