It was time… my third “last” last wave came to an end and my stomach was begging for breakfast. Chatting to a friend as I passed her on her way a bomb came out of nowhere. With no time to turn my board around and duck dive, and knowing my friend was on a 9” mal, I threw my board to the left away from us both…
The wave crashed down on top of us as it claimed my surfboard. With force, my board pulled at my leg rope bending my knee 90 degrees in the wrong direction.
I won’t lie… panic erupted when I re-surfaced as I thought I’d lost the bottom half of my leg—dramatic I know. Filled with terror I climbed onto my board causing acute agonising pain to shoot up my femur as my bones decided to re-align themselves.
***
So in short, I’m injured again! It seems I can’t get a break, well the right side of my body at least.
As you can probably guess, I’m pretty devastated. I was so frustrated I couldn’t hold back my tears—it was only my 5th surf after dislocating my shoulder.
My knee was only part of the carnage up on the Gold Coast over Easter. Among the surfers at the Christian Surfers Australia national gathering there were 14 boards snapped and over 20 other boards damaged (mine included – separate incident).
Being my first national gathering,I was super stoked to be there and couldn’t bring myself to miss a session let alone the paddle out on Sunday.
So true to my usual stupid form, I soldiered on and didn’t seek proper medical attention until I flew home on Monday (with the incident occurring 7am Saturday).
Silver linings
To ease your mind, I didn’t just ignore my injury.
After a quick prayer sesh with one of the Old Salts from the GC, help came from all directions. It turns out that there were 6 nurses at the gathering alone! Talk about prayers being answered.
On top of this, I spent the day with one of the Old Salts as we sourced strapping tape and compression brace in Burleigh Heads. I also attended an optional session which was super encouraging. If it hadn’t been for my injury, I wouldn’t have done either of these and know my life would be completely different.
How can one afternoon change your life? It just can when you’ve let Jesus be your king and saviour.
Lastly, everyone at the national gathering were pure legends. No one made me feel left out as I limped about and every single person oozed compassion. Well I guess I should have expected this as I was surrounded by a bunch of Christians. But still, you’re all awesome and I love you all!
The diagnosis
Not only did I dislocate my patella, but I also tore my medial ligament in the process. As it turns out, this is the absolute best ligament to tear. Why? It seems it heals itself in 6 weeks. But until then, I’m in a hectic bionic knee style splint for at least 3 weeks.
It could get worse. I need to go for an MRI to investigate a potential acute medial meniscal tear, which will require an operation if I have torn it. Fingers crossed this isn’t the case but always the optimist I’m not really even considering it as an option.
Total injury tally over the last 12 months:
- Medial sesamoiditis in my right foot with a degraded sesamoid bone
- Torn tendon in right index finger
- Dislocated right shoulder with a torn pectoral muscle
- Patella dislocation of right knee with torn medial ligament and possible acute medial meniscal tear
Note: No injuries were incurred in the writing of this post
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