In my previous blog I wrote that I crashed in the GS, but skipped the part about what happened after my crash. I wasn’t ready I guess… So here it comes.
I knew I wasn’t going to make the gate but tried everything I could, before I knew it my left ski made a strange move and I crashed. I was down on the ground completely focused on my right leg (that’s the disabled and recently broken one) but it was fine. My left leg wasn’t hurting either but it felt strange, and after the incident where I walked and skied on a broken ankle for 2 weeks, I just didn’t trust it. The guys from the rescue and medical service came to me and removed my boot, that didn’t hurt at all, I was very pleased with that because removing my boot did hurt badly on my broken ankle. They pressed on various points on my ankle, all negative, meaning didn’t hurt. But there was a big swelling in the ankle.
So we didn’t take any risks and I was put in the sled, which I hated, I thought I could just as easy go down on the back of the ski-doo.
Being in the sled was a total new experience, luckily I have never been in one before, they strep you in very tight. The ski down was a bit scary and uncomfortable, they stopped every 3 turns to ask if I was ok, but I just wanted to go down asap.
My dad insisted on going to the hospital for X-rays and so we did. It was a very modern and efficient hospital on the mountain. When my dad was filling out the paper work I was already wheeled off to take the X-rays. They were immediately checked by a doctor, I could see him through the window. He came to me told me the good news about my ankle not being broken, examined the ankle and said it would be fine. Still no pain just swelling. So I was cleared on walking. Walking was fine meaning it didn’t hurt but since there was a lot of swelling I had problems with my coördination and that was hard because my left leg is the one that needs to do it all. The slalom was canceled but I wouldn’t have started anyway, because of my ankle.
Next morning when I removed the pressure dressing I noticed a hematoma (bleeding) medial on my ankle and there were some bruises on my calf. I redid the pressure dressing and we went in the car home, a 9 hour drive (1050km)… Well that made matters worse, after a few hours my foot started to go numb, my calf was swollen so much that it felt like it would explode. When I was home I did all I know to get the swelling go down, icing, keeping the leg high, pressure dressing. Also the hematoma was a lot bigger and there where new ones on my calf up to my knee and on the lateral side of the ankle. On Monday the lateral part of the calf was numb. And I started to worry but since I still didn't had any pain I decided to see how it would go. And that was good the swelling went down a bit on Tuesday and the numbness was gone. I went to see my physio (also the team physio) on Tuesday, well she wasn’t too happy with the looks of it. But since she couldn’t find anything wrong with my ankle, couldn’t find the source of the bleed, we decided to check again on Thursday (today) to see if I could go to La Molina Friday for the training camp. So I went back today swelling has gone down (calf is normal again, ankle still is swollen but not as bad anymore) and the hematomas are starting to resolve. All test where still negative so the ankle itself looks fine. She asked another physio of the Dutch ski federation to check it out and help decide what to do. All though all the test where fine and I can do everything with my leg, the decision was made that I wouldn’t go to La Molina.
Mostly because this is my good leg and we can’t take any risks with it and they don’t know what caused the bleed yet. It could be a structure that’s deep inside the leg which gives problems later on. We will see… For now it’s rest. Off course this is a big disappointment to me but I know it’s best to be careful right now. It will be ok once again, after all my broken ankle rehab turned out to be a smooth and fast one.
wednesday morning doesn't look good...
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