12 days ago I broke my left tibia and fibula while playing Padel. It was brutal. I feel like I’ve lived a year in a week. Now, post surgery and as I emerge from a pain-medication induced fog, I begin the 6-month rehabilitation process and I’m energised to do it well. The following comprises excerpts from my journal in blog post format.
The irony is that I have felt so strong this year.
Kicking off shortly after the new year, I had a near perfect record of daily breathing and mobility exercises. It’s just 15 minutes each morning - 7 minutes of breathing and 8 minutes of mobility - but I have found this practice to be a source of calm and strength each day. Coupled with daily writing, a clear personal plan for the year, and several high quality alignment discussions with the people who work with me, I have felt strong and purposeful.
One of the lenses I take to my life is that of my “rhythms”. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual rhythms. I love a rhythm!
Keri and I recently started a monthly “Padel and dinner” with our close friends, Robs and Dan. It has been fun. But they also white washed us last month, which meant that this next match was always going to be important.
And so as last Tuesday evening’s match began, we came out of the blocks firing! Keri was playing exceptionally well. We quickly went 5-1 up. They clawed back to 5-3. And now Keri was serving for the set. At 30 all, I knew the next point mattered a lot. After a good service, Dan lobbed me and I stepped back to take the volley. I remember falling back on a peculiar footing and suddenly hearing what someone at the Padel club later described as “the sound of a gun shot”.
I knew instantly that I had broken my leg and went down on the ground. I could see the different levels between my mid and lower left shin. This was bad.
But there was no immediate pain. Shock is an amazing thing.
One of the people at the club was a trauma medic and helped put a small splint on my leg. The pain was now unbearable, but the small splint gave me confidence to hold the two pieces of my leg together. Several large men hoisted me up under my arms while I did my best to minimise movement at the break site. We got into a car and drove to the local hospital’s Emergency Room. Every bump in the road was cause for a primal scream.
Sometime early the next morning I wrote:
I broke my lower left leg in both bones while playing Padel. I came down twisted on my left foot and heard a clear crack.
I knew it was broken clean through. I couldn’t move my shin without lifting the whole foot and shin all together.
There was no pain at the start. And then every move brought all the pain in the world.
Keri, Dan, Robs and others at Padel were so helpful. I got in a car.
The doctor took X-rays. That was sore.
Then the doctor said they need to snap back the knee. They would give me Ketamine for this.
They gave me the Ketamine. It was a wild wild trip. I felt some of the pain. But I felt I was going on a journey outside of myself flying through the air with oranges and reds as the prominent colours. And Dragons. It’s like I was one with and inside of so many things, and it was beautiful.
Now I am in the wards for sleep. They gave me more pain meds. And more sleeping pills.
Next pain meds are at 6.30am. I can feel I am going to need them.
As I wobble my leg, it feels like it is in two parts. I’ve never felt this before. Legs are always solid. My left leg is not solid.
It sounds like the operation will only happen on Thursday, which is my kids’ birthday. And tomorrow will be about CT Scan to look for ankle issues.
Here is my x-ray post break. You can see my hands and wedding ring clearly in the x-ray because there was no chance I was going to let it go! Next to it is a picture of me before surgery with a clay figurine my kids (and Nana!) had made for me - it’s me playing Padel with a cast on my leg!
I think there are going to be many challenging periods to this recovery, but the most challenging part to date was being told the day after the break that my operation would only take place the following morning.
As I sat with the feeling that I needed to get through the next 17 hours, I reflected on a difficult truth in my life: I tend to value speed over smart.
I knew that statistically I had a better chance of a successful surgical procedure the next morning with a well rested surgeon and clean operating room, but I still pushed hard to have surgery at the end of the day so that I could close the pain and the uncertainty. In the end, the decision was made for me. And I was deeply reflective about this tension between speed and smart. Sometimes the smart thing to do is to go fast. But in this case the smart thing was to wait, tolerate the pain and have surgery the next morning.
Here are x-rays post surgery, showing the intramedullary nail and screws. They made me feel like I was “back together” again.
I feel like the world is telling me “Slow and steady, Sam”. I am listening.
I feel like I need to accept more pain in my life. It’s part of life. It’s an important source of growth. And yet I avoid it so easily. Not anymore.
I am fortunate to be a very positive person. The pain, the uncertainty, the immobility has been tough at times. And while I haven’t battled to find the positives, it has been tempting to wonder “If I just didn’t go for that shot then I wouldn’t be in this position”. A sliding doors moment.
It’s a useless line of logic. But I think it must be a common lament for anyone who has suffered misfortune. “If only I hadn’t…”
A few days ago I did a simple exercise of inverting the responsibility to be mine by writing “I chose to break my leg so that I could…” I know that might sound daft. And although this injury has had me reflect on spirituality a fair amount, I didn’t do the exercise because I believed it to be true but rather as a way to explore myself in this challenging time. I wrote:
I chose to break my leg so that I could:
Slow down
Have long conversations with people who are important in my life
Truly depend on others for survival
Appreciate others looking after me
Have my kids serve me breakfast
Really appreciate my wife’s talent in cooking and my love for food
See where the pressure points are in relationships between people who are close to me (they come out in crisis!)
Pause on all the petty shit
Stop drinking wine for a while
Experience a Ketamine trip (fortunately, my trip was good)
Think about God
Open up 70% of my daily diary
Experience real pain
Do something (rehab) really well that can only be done slowly and steadily.
There were a few more playful things that have come to me since then:
Have a pizza picnic with my family in my bedroom for dinner
Watch my daughter genuinely care for me
Have clear parental roles at home (Keri is now looking after 3 children as the sole parent!)
Appreciate a simple change in weather (I felt joy when it rained last week)
Have my dogs sleep in my bedroom (they didn’t before the accident)
In “Man’s search for Meaning”, Victor Frankl defined logotherapy as the process through which we find meaning, often through suffering. 12 days post my accident, I am clear on my meaning from this time: to fortify my foundations for the next 20 years - quite literally, a titanium nail and screws in my left tibia, and then as a guiding principle for how I live my life. The application of this principle is beyond the scope of this public blog. As I explore its implications, I feel clear and energised.
It turns out that there is no irony in breaking my leg after starting the year so strong. This is my path.
Now, to do a slow and steady recovery well.
8 - 12 weeks without any pressure on my left leg is a long time! I went on a family sabbatical last year to Deia, Mallorca. We were there for 4 months, and I find it almost incomprehensible to think that I won’t be able to put weight on my left leg for this same period of time. A “sabbatical from walking” if you will! But this is what foundational change feels like - incomprehensible until I’ve done the work to incorporate it into my life.
I am grateful for the people who have held me in their thoughts and made an outsized effort to support. I am grateful for modern medical technology and Dr Workman’s surgical skill. I am grateful for pain meds and anti-inflammatories. I am grateful for a positive, purposeful, productive mindset that can steer me through this time and leave me stronger.