It wasn’t how the year was supposed to end but here we are. When I saw the first doctor in NSW and had the X-ray, he said he was 99% sure the injury was just a bad sprain. Fast forward a couple of weeks and a few MRI and CT scans later. The ankle specialist in South Australia has identified the injury as two ruptured ligaments and a small fracture requiring surgery. So under the knife, I go for the fifth time in my life.
The surgery adds two pins to each side of my ankle with a cord that wraps around the joint holding the ligaments in place. They will also clean up the site of the small fracture where the bone is chipped so it heals properly. I’ll be in a boot and crutches for two weeks post-surgery and can jog after four weeks if all goes well. I think 6-8 weeks is a fair timeline to be back hiking.
It is what it is. I’ll use this time to let other parts of my body recover and to strengthen my upper body, handgrip, and core while doing exercises that don’t use my legs or mobilize the ankle. I’ll also jump on the computer when I find motivation and tidy up lots of admin and updates on the blog as I anticipate the travel traffic to increase throughout 2022 assuming the recovery does actually occur. The blog is pretty self-sufficient and when the search traffic increases so do my page views and income but there are a number of areas I can pay attention to, which will make 2022 as successful as possible. It won’t be exciting or glamorous but I’ll have plenty of downtime during this period to make sure everything is running smoothly.
As I mentioned in the last ‘Weekly’, there won’t be too many travel photos during this time. I write these short journals predominantly for myself to keep a record of my travels, and periods of my life. It’s getting close to six years now so it’s something I make sure to carry on.
Brent
Tuesday 4th of January 2022
Get well soon! Sorry to hear about these injuries.