The phone buzzed.
Thomas calling.
“Hiya,” I said. “You OK?”
“Not really,” he replied.
My insides did a little lurch.
Please be a bike problem, I willed.
“I jumped off a side hit and got a bit out of shape in the air. Nothing big or stupid.”
Please be a bike problem.
“My foot unclipped in the air and I put it out to try and save the landing.”
This is not sounding like a bike problem.
“But when I landed, all my weight went on it, and it bent at a weird angle.”
Damn.
“My knee’s swollen up, and it’s really painful.”
Shhhhhhhh-ugar!
“Can you come and get me? I’m rolling down the road from 10%.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I met him in a layby at Les Ys between Les Gets and Morzine and it didn’t look good.
He was visibly in pain, obviously physically compromised, and looked gutted.
I helped him into the front of the van, then loaded his bike in the back.
We didn’t vocalise it, but we both knew it was most likely ligaments and probably the end of his summer’s riding, let alone racing.
This wasn’t one of those give-it-a-day-or-two injuries.
This was a straight-to-the-medical-centre injury.
Thankfully there was a parking space available right outside, no queue for reception and, surprisingly, no one waiting.
I did the paperwork and T went straight into the X-ray room, where one of the junior doctors got to work on the initial assessment.
He disappeared off and returned a few minutes later with one of the senior doctors and a couple of nurses to check the diagnosis and follow it up with some X-rays for good measure.
Everybody disappeared to review the X-rays and have a confab before returning to deliver the verdict.
The examinations and X-ray had led them to conclude that it was most probably a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).
There might also be some damage to the medial collateral ligament (MCL), and recovery from a worst-case scenario could be more than nine months…
Gulp…
Thomas would need an MRI in two to three weeks followed by an appointment with a specialist to get an accurate diagnosis and the full picture.
The printer got to work firing off a pile of prescriptions and referrals: a knee brace, crutches, painkillers, an MRI, an orthopaedic specialist and physiotherapy, which the doc said should start straight away.
That was some good news at least.
Immediate physio meant immediate focus on the road to recovery.
We got home, packed ice around the injured knee and glumly let it all sink in.
He and we were still gutted but we started to shift our attention towards an action plan.
There’s no point in wallowing.
What’s done is done. There’s no going back.
Focus on getting back to full fitness as soon as possible.
Ideally fitter, faster and stronger than ever before.
We researched what might be useful to support ligament recovery and placed an order for vitamin C, collagen, omega-3s and a top-up on the protein powder stock.
We agreed that upgrading our limited ‘home gym’ setup to a membership at the local gym would be invaluable.
He already swims and, once we get the green light from the physio, that’ll be another excellent addition.
We were all already imprinting a picture of a jacked and optimised version of Thomas in our mind’s eye.
He can also use the time to keep working on his socials, which are increasingly important for sponsors, teams and his profile. His are already very good, I might add.
We can explore more monetisation strategies to help with funding going forward.
Heck, we could even be setting off on our next bike trip in a brand spanking motorhome with a Surron strapped to the back.
We added that to the mental vision but got back to the here and now, lucking out with a physio appointment the following day after a cancellation.
The physio massaged out a bunch of swelling from Thomas’s knee and issued a set of exercises to crack on with before the next session.
Thomas has a remarkably stoic attitude and he’s already excited about all the progress he can make moving forward.
Having come back from injury before, he also has the benefit of experience this time. He understands that it’s not the end of the world.
It’s a process that you go through and a situation you move beyond.
He’s already got two upper-body ‘chair workouts’ under his belt and has his shiny new gym membership ready for his first session.
It is a real shame though… If you’ve been following, you’ll know he has had a great season this year and made excellent progress.
He has moved up to competing at the highest level possible for his age and has been steadily improving his results.
There have also been a whole bunch of World Cup riders in town recently ahead of the upcoming World Cup in Les Gets.
Thomas’s riding level and growing network of friends meant he’d been getting to ride with more and more of them, coming back with tales of Pleney bangers with some of the best in the business.
We’d also been turning our minds to the next triple header of race weekends lined up at the end of the month:
- The AuRA Regional Championships at Le Lioran
- The Coupe de France just up the road in Châtel
- The IXS EDC Continental in Verbier
He was actually due to go to Verbier with his mate Archie the day after his mishap to check out the IXS track in advance.
We’d even been hatching a pipe-dream plan for one last long-range race of the season at the final IXS in Maribor, Slovenia.
All those plans are out of the window.
But you never know…
A mate of Thomas’s headed off for an MRI a couple of years ago with his winter season hopes in tatters, only to find out that it had been a minor issue and he could get back to it straight away.
So we’ll see.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
Roll on the scan.
