Summer Training

Summer training started with weather that made me think it was summer.

After pushing myself to hard to get back and race the same season in which I broke my ankle I reinjured myself. So now I’m going to do it differently still training hard, pushing myself to the limit but not going through the limit, or so I plan. I have 7 months till my first race which gives me time to get back in race shape better and stronger than before.

This injury was a lot different from last, starting with the fact that it wasn’t broken and I was able to walk. But the fact that there was a nerve problem made it a lot less predictable. I started skiing again a little over a week ago (Thursday April 21). All though the feeling is good and I have control over my ski’s getting back to skiing was a bit harder than getting back after my broken ankle. Mostly because my broken ankle was in my disabled leg and this is my good leg. Physically I’m pretty far away from where I left of, I miss so much power in my leg. But other than that skiing is going quite well, I’m making progress and off course I’m glad to be back on ski’s, in control and it feels good.

My physio is writing my new training programs for the gym and they feel good. I’m getting stronger but most importantly my coordination is improving and that has always been my weak spot.

My bike is at the shop because I had to get some adjustments for it. My hip started to bother me while cycling. I don’t have that problem on a spinning bike because on a spinning bike I don’t have to pull that hard to get the crank back up. I found someone who can adjust my bike for one legged cycling so it feels just like normal cycling, I don’t have to pull that hard anymore which irritated my hip. I hope to get it back next week, I’m looking forward to cycling especially with weather like this.

Easter

Last weekend I celebrated Easter with my family and with temperatures like it was summer. It was even to hot (for my grandparents) to eat lunch outside.

We had lunch at my aunt and uncles place and they have a pool! So after lunch we went for a swim. Even all the dogs joined us in the pool to bad my dog Bounty wasn’t there he would have loved it!

I have a two week vacation (just one week left) because there are retakes from some of the exams from last semester and I passed all my exams! I guess the university loves the fact that I broke my ankle ;-) Last year I had 3 exams in this period, 2 of them I hadn’t take the first time and the other one because I cut it short the first time, I had to catch a plane. I locked myself in for two weeks but passed all of them so it was for a good cause. Now I have two weeks off and I can put all my focus on my training and getting back in shape which  is nice for a change and gives me new energy for the last 3 courses of the semester. 

This weekend I’m staying at my mom’s house to take care of the pets (dog and cat) because she is on a weekend trip. Yesterday I drove to Arnhem and to avoid traffic jams I left home during the royal wedding, thought it was too traditional and boring anyway. But I wasn’t the only one with this idea and ended up in traffic jams anyway (3 in total which cost me 45 minutes).

There are way too much cars in this country!

Today it’s Queens-day which is a big party in the Netherlands, love it.

Four years

Today four years ago I had the surgery that changed my life in a lot of ways, but not all changes are bad, after all it did bring me some good stuff as well.

Yes I will always remember that day although back then I had no idea about what had happened. I remember waking up (from my second knee surgery in 3 months) in a lot of pain not just in my knee but in my whole leg. I didn’t know that some of that pain wasn’t normal post operative pain but caused by my muscles dying. I was told that my pain was normal because I just had extensive knee surgery and they shot me up with morphine and more morphine, until I quit breathing, they gave me oxygen to solve that problem.

Eventually my whole leg started to swell and I had a fever, but still they said it was all normal.

When I got home, after a week in the hospital, rehab started but I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t put any weight on my leg it was just floppy, weird, and I couldn't move my knee.

My physio didn’t know what to do, and my kneecap started to dislocate a lot.

I got a full leg cast, which was a relief for me because finally I could put some weight on my leg and get around easier.

Every time they removed the cast my kneecap dislocated again, so I ended up being in a cast for months. I went to the kneecap god of surgeons, if you ask me he was more like dr. House. His first words to me; “that’s a functionless leg” well that was true, the leg was very slim and the knee would only bend 15 degrees, which wasn’t that strange after spending months in a cast. I got another surgery (the third knee surgery in one year) and they removed lots and lots of scar tissue, there was no big anatomical problem what made my kneecap dislocate except for the scar tissue. After surgery I got a device of torture to move my knee, I used it for months and it worked I can bend my knee 90 degrees now.

Well “dr. House” was convinced he fixed me, but he didn’t because I still couldn’t move my leg or put weight on it. He told me I was just lazy (told you dr. House) and I needed a lot of rehab. I stayed 22 weeks in the rehab hospital, way too long! Well to make a long story a bit shorter, the first couple of weeks we tried everything to walk but my leg was just way too weak, the physio over there said your leg is too weak, I know that you did everything you can and you are not lazy, although deep down I already knew that was true it helped hearing it from him. Because I couldn’t walk I got a wheelchair. Well saying I was frustrated and mad is an understatement.

In August 2008 I got a third opinion and this doc was the first one to suggest that the problem might be in my muscles. That my muscles were severely damaged and that it wasn’t my fault, sounds strange because this meant my leg wouldn’t get better but it was a relief to hear that it wasn’t my fault. Eventually a neurologist confirmed this diagnosis with a full leg MRI and a EMG. My muscles are damaged by ischemia, meaning they didn't get enough oxygen during the surgery. I got my first full leg brace, a knee ankle foot orthosis (KAFO), in December 2008 and I started to learn how to walk with it. Because I was almost done with my rehab (they told me it wouldn’t get better, I just had to live with it, they were wrong…….) I mostly learned myself how to walk again.

With  my first orthosis, August 2009 

From this point everything got a lot better! I got rid of the wheelchair (most of the time, when I can’t wear my orthosis I still can’t walk). Now I’m able to do things I never had imagined doing again. Although four years ago I didn’t knew anything of this and I just planned for a normal ACL recovery…. Well if we knew what future holds it wouldn’t be any fun, I like some surprises! Recently (after I broke my ankle) I got the physiotherapy I needed to walk good, more normal and faster, that, together with the new orthosis I got last December, improved my walking a lot.

June 2009

July 2009

March 2011 

On another note my drop foot is gone! My left leg is back to normal, strong as ever and I started summer training, more on that in my next blog.

Fathers and Daughters

Last Friday I had a father daughter day with friends and our dad’s.

It was a beautiful sunny day and actually quite hot for April.

We played golf and had lot of fun with our dad’s and each other.

I invented (together with the instructor and my dad) a technique so I could have a good swing.

My right knee won’t bend because of the orthosis so I placed my right leg slightly more backward. I have played golf a few times when I was about 14 years old, but I still knew how to hit the ball hard.

After golf we had beer, off course, well the dad’s, and dinner.

It was an amazing day and I had a lot of fun.

me and my dad when I was 3 years old

I made a video of the day

Spring

Dear foot lifter muscles,

I know it’s hard being in my left leg, the leg that has to do it all and has to be at least twice as strong as a normal leg. Especially when the muscles in my right leg seem to be chilling all day, but doctors say they are damaged and mostly death so we have to deal with that.

I guess you deserved a break, but now after 4 weeks vacation is over.

Let’s get back to work so I can do amazing things (like skiing)!

Slowly I’m regaining more control over my foot, the drop foot is getting better. I’m now at the point where you can’t hear it, most of the time, it gets worse when I’m tired. Since there is progress it’s most likely that the nerve was ‘just’ compressed and that there is no leasion. I’m very happy with that. The thing with nerve things is that it’s hard to make a prognosis, but my physio is happy with the progress. So we go for a speedy full recovery!

This weekend are the Swiss champs and I was planning to race there, it would have been the last races of the season. It still makes me kind of frustrated that I can’t race. I just wanted to get my points so bad, I knew it was possible to get beneath the 200 points and now this will cost me a year. Yes it is what it is but I just wanted to nag about it for a little while, makes me feel better all ready.

My lovely old dog Bounty is staying with me for the weekend and we had 23 degrees and lot's of sun today so it’s a good weekend anyways. Bounty is 13 years old and is limping a bit, so when I walk him it’s a perfect fit, both limping and the same pace ;-)

I was planning on going to beach with Bounty today, but I guess that’s too much for him right now, his legs are hurting a bit since a couple of days. I found some nice pictures with Bounty on the beach from 2 years ago, he loved it!

My rehab training is going quite well my leg is still strong, except for the foot lifter muscles. So most exercises are no problem there are just a few things I can’t do at the moment like planking. I do some isolated foot lifter exercises and tried medical taping which worked well for me.  

Season is over

It’s spring time so the season was coming to an end anyway, but I had still 2 races planned.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to race those last races, I will enjoy the spring sun instead, not that bad.

The reason I won’t be skiing is off course my legs.

My season was over the day I broke my ankle but with a lot of hard work and luck, I got a bonus. I trained hard in rehab with the goal to be able to race the last races of the season, so I still had a chance to get my point limit for the national team. My hard work in rehab paid off and 18 weeks after surgery I was back on ski’s. I got my new skiing-orthosis and got used to it, so 4 weeks later I was in Austria skiing better than before I broke my ankle.

I hadn’t had a chance to train giant slalom, so racing probably wasn’t that smart but I did it anyway. Because I felt the pressure to proof myself and get the points I desperately wanted.

Well I crashed and hurt myself which mostly happened because of lack of GS training.

So how is my left leg doing now? Well not that bad but not good enough to ski at this moment. It’s time to make the smarter decisions see it as it is, a lost season and start training for next season, so I will start out strong.

There is no injury found in my left leg but it's still swollen. It was swollen pretty bad before and that compressed my nerve, so the foot lifter muscles in my leg are weak at the moment, and I have kind of a drop foot while walking. This probably will be all right once the swelling is gone. I’m doing everything I can to make the swelling go down in both legs, the right leg still is slightly swollen but that’s normal 6 months after surgery.

taking care of my legs

my freezer filled with cold packs

Other then the fact that I have a bit of a drop foot and that it’s swollen my leg doesn’t bother me at all. It doesn’t hurt and I can do pretty much everything with it. Last weekend I started thinking that I probably would be able to ski, well I was wrong. I tried on Tuesday did one run but had no control. My physio wasn’t too happy with this at first, but then she said well now you know for sure you can’t ski at this moment. And that’s true, that made it easier to let go of my hopes and dreams for this season. So season is over and rehab is on! And I got pretty good at rehab so I will come back stronger once again. I’m already doing a lot of training in the gym so everything is going in the right direction.

And this is what happened after I crashed.

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...

st Lambrecht

I am back at home after my first race weekend in st Lambrecht Austria, it was an amazing trip. We arrived Wednesday night after a smooth trip, I went with my dad (coach), brother and sister. Thursday I skied on my slalom ski’s, I needed some runs to get used to my orthosis but I ended up skiing way better than before! I’m starting to put more pressure on my leg so next step will be the gas spring. In the afternoon I trained slalom with the Canadian para-skiteam, they even timed me! I was really happy with this opportunity to train slalom, very nice of them to give me this opportunity. I made a video of 3 of my runs.

this pic is kind of strange, there are 2 of me ;)

Friday was the day of the super combined, I’m not racing speed events (yet) so it was a training day for me. I trained on my GS ski’s and I found my speed, I think this was my best skiing since my leg impairment. I even made some jumps. The orthosis worked great and my dad was proud. Before I was born my dad was a ski racer and Dutch national coach.

It was a beautiful day sunny and quite hot but the slope was amazing, hard and a bit icy, great. All though the conditions where great the super combined was canceled due to safety issues, problems with the nets.

With my brother and sister

The team captains meeting was intense, most coaches wanted the super combined to be rescheduled since they came especially for this event. The organization said to consider the request to reschedule on Sunday. So next event giant slalom (GS), 150 competitors and a very strong field with even world champions racing. I got bib 19, first group is the visually impaired (VI) girls 10 for this race next group was mine bib 11-20 standing girls, bib 21-33 where the sitting girls. And the rest where all guys, VI, Standing and sitting.

I prepped my ski’s and went to bed early.

Saturday I was excited to race but not too nervous, felt pretty good. During inspection I noticed some pretty sharp turns, I memorized them and knew where they where and what to do. But still… I started first few turns in tuck, they where smooth and I skied them good and fast. I went over a hump into a steep part, I knew that’s where the very sharp turn is did my best but was too late for the next two gates. My line was completely wrong, tried to do all I could to make the third gate, the sharp one and I crashed… That was it I was down, ski’s and poles were gone. So I got a DNF (did not finish) in my first race back, hate it! I know it’s all part of the game, it happens and will happen again, but had it to be my first race?

I was frustrated and even cried, yes I’m weak, just human. I wanted to get my point limit and I knew it was possible, that’s what made this so frustrating. And in the back of my head I knew they would probably cancel the slalom race because of the super combined.

The slalom indeed was canceled and we went home this morning.

Even though I feel a bit down because of the DNF and canceled slalom this was a great experience and I had a good time over there. It was nice to meet some of the other racers, everybody is so nice! Love it. There are still two race weekends coming up, although the German races are missing FIS codex. The last opportunity will be the races in st Moritz, I really want to go but don’t know if my dad is able to go with me, or if I have to arrange for someone else.

But first la Molina training camp, I leave on Friday.