Going home.

'The day had come it was home time it had been a couple of days since my operation , it had been another sleepless night I had slept with my earphones in just to drown out the noise of patients coughing and spluttering , that and I was dozing on and off in a opium cloud of conciseness.
I was up early and heading to the coffee shop to catch up with a mate , I was pretty sure I would cop a bit of shit of this guy he was my best friend the first guy I call when shits fucked up. He looked at me like "yep you are lucky s.o.b"  I just laughed what more can you do the whole situation was just so messed up I was so close to losing the life I had on a fricken trampoline  I mean anybody that knows me knows the kind of thing's I get up to  for example, I have a ktm 690 super motard that I love to boot around on I enjoy Rock climbing with my brother ,  I spent years wake boarding, driving v8s  and dirt bike riding not  to mention the shit I got up to in my teens but the thing that nearly ends me is a fricken trampoline ....really. It was good to see my mate but it was time to get ready for home time.
I headed back up to my room ready to pack my things away and go home , I handed some leftover  home made beef jerky one of the AJ boys had dropped in to the patient across from me  , it made his day, its amazing what the smallest gesture can do to somebody's morale .  This poor guy had crashed his motor bike ( see what I mean) and shattered both his legs he had been in hospital for 4 weeks and had at least another 8 to go this guys had to learn to walk again, He wasn't speeding or being silly he braked for a cassowary that ran out on the range , he hit the brakes grabbed a fist full of clutch got the bike down to about 10 km/h  and in his haste he dropped the clutch with the bike at high revs and looped it out , a silly mistake.
  I felt even more grateful that I was going home able to walk without assistance .  It wasn't long before I got the ok to go ,I called Rach  she was on her way , my little family gathered up my belongings and away we went it was time to get this healing underway I had been told that I needed 6 weeks of rest.......6 weeks of doing nothing. In my head I felt like I would be back to doing what I had been doing in a matter of a few months. I was wrong. I have been told 6 weeks of nothing , then I can start doing some body weight exercise with some walking on a treadmill only, 12 weeks I can start running outside 6 months +......... Barbell training. Finally I had a plan . A time frame  to formulate my come back  i figure i Have 4 months of body weight training  I'll use that to destroy pistol ( single leg squats ) ring dips, push ups and pull ups . 
 I want to compete in the redlynch valley estate races and adventure races,  I say that ill do one every yer and every year ........nothing, not any more its on.
There is no time for tomorrow,  you dont know what tomorrow will bring or who will be there to share it with you.
   sooooo I was home finally........I spent the day snoozing and  lying around under the watchful eyes of my wife who would punce on my every moan or grown asking if i was alright.  It was late that night when I woke up to go to the toilet I was standing there doing my thing when the next minute   I was on my backside  with rach asking if i was ok. I had fainted and i was shit scared i was trying to work out if i hit my head , had i undone the handy work of the surgeon , what the F&^k just happened. I told Rach i needed to go back to the hospital.
I was thrown strait back into a Neck brace until they could xray me and see if everything was still in place.  I laid there for hours they had two problem number one was that i had passed out and two was had i done any more damage . They said the first was a combination of Tremadol and getting up from lying around for the day so good bye tremadol. I was x rayed by a very cranky dude at 3 am in the morning i think somebody must have been woken up to come to work, this dude was smashing the controls on the equipment and mumbling some crap.....whatever dude i'm sure you are raking in the penalties man deal with it it's your job. So the scan came back all good i was discharged in the morning and home for round 2 .

3......2.......1.....GO ,oh you can't you are broken.

PB of 180kg Dead lift

I had all intentions of continuing my story where I left off but the last few days have been tough to say the least. Like I said I'm not patient.

I want my life back NOW.

I know that I am doing better then 90% of people in my condition my pain medication is just some ibuprofen 95% of the time...... but I hate the limitations on my body. I have spent the last 18+ months Crossfitting; building a better me, a stronger me and now here I am doing nothing sitting in a fricken chair for most of the day, undoing all that hard work.

I  feel like it's selfish that I want no repercussions from this accident, because I know that there are people who experienced similar accidents who are far worse off than me. Most of those will never walk again. But, that's what I want.
    I came across this quote the other day.
“It was then that I realized I wasn't afraid to lose my life; I was afraid to lose the life I could've lived.”

This is what I want! The life that I've been afraid to live!  I want to do the thing's I have been hesitant to do. I have already started to make some of those decisions in an attempt to do this, but I will elaborate on those at a later date.

In order to achieve these goals I need to start taking the right steps to get myself back on track, physically and mentally. I need to treat my rehab as I did my training, just wake up and get it done! No excuses - clean up my diet and get it done!
I walked for 20 mins on the treadmill on an incline at 6km/hr the other day.
........ so boring! How does that even compare to 3.....2.....1.....GO? It's not even close!

I know it needs to be done. I know that every step will help me. I just need to get on that stupid treadmill all the time. Start doing every thing I need to do to get to my goal.

post wod

Man I miss crossfit.
I miss my crew.
I miss my deadlifts. Moving that loaded bar. Pushing myself every day.
I guess the new challenge is to push myself closer to recovery every day. Its hard when all you hear is take it easy and rest!
I feel like all I have done is rest. I just want to do what I had been doing. But, I know that it will get better it is just going to take time .
   
I did a stupid thing today I fricken Googled C4-5 recovery. Bad move. The outlook didn't look good. They were all complaining  about neck and shoulder pain 6 months post surgery. I know that age and fitness is a huge factor in recovery. I mean I'm 33 and in reasonably good shape and have been told my fitness is what saved my life and kept me out of a wheelchair, so I feel like I have the upper hand in recovery. I know that my chances of full recovery are within my reach. Even the surgeon has told me 6 month and I will be good to go.
 My sister-in-law is quick to tell me proper rehab and not rushing it is the key. I just need to do it right.

I just have to remove all this doubt from my mind and reading other peoples horror story's isn't going to help. I just need to look at http://mirandaoldroyd.blogspot.com.au/  and I know it can be done. I know I have referred to this athlete before, but this right now is what is keeping me going.

Tomorrow is a new day and with it I can guarantee that its going to bring air squats, lunges, a fast walk and some mobility because there is no way I'm wasting this second chance.
                                      

The REPS crew at torture in the Tropics.

Did that really Happen?

So where was I ....... that's right ICU. I was moved down to the orthopedic ward  by lunch time where I was taken off my morphine drip because i wasn't using enough , I mean come on if I knew those were the rules I would have hit big red a bit more. I spent the next day getting visits from all the Army boys the support  from my unit has been unreal and continues to be,  the camaraderie is one of the  very reasons I joined the Army Reserves, I love my part time Job as Rifleman  the trainings hard , the  condition suck ( if it's not raining were not training ) but none of that matters when you are out there with ya mates taking the piss out of each other , I love nothing better then in the middle of big pack march when ya start feeling the fatigue  to  ask my mate Andy (my good friend)   if he wants to quit or if he want me to  carry his weapon , he does the same to me we both know that neither would ever give up  but its fun taking the Micky.

Anyway the love just kept coming From friends and family all day. In between the visits i would  sleep  dossed up on Endone  and usually awake to a nurse or doctor asking me to squeeze there hand and have them hit me with there stupid little reflex hammer they told me news had gotten around the ward and surgical team  about "the trampoline guy" the words "luckiest guy in the hospital"  were thrown around a bit .
 later that day my favorite visitors game to see me my little family  miss Claire, Tyler and my beautiful wife Rachael . I think i may have hugged them a Little tighter then usual and i can tell you i hold that hug a little longer now .My little princess was so gentle laying with me asking me if my neck was better yet ( she sat with me on the trampoline telling me I would be ok she really is a amazing little person  )  I was just so grateful to be able to hold them they all really do mean the world to me and to think that just 24 hours ago I was facing the real possibility of never holding them again......so much can happen in a day ,you really don't know whats around the corner. after they had left my buddy Pork chop (have to love army nicknames)  came to visit he even smuggled in some dark chocolate ,he knows me all too well .  we just sat and chatted for a bit but there was something i wanted to do now my beautiful wife  had left for the night.
I had to wait for her to leave because she would have made me stay in bed but i just needed to show myself that i could do it that i could walk with out being a wobbly mess. I know I  was pushing the envelop being just 22 hours out of surgery but that's me always in a rush,if you know be you know that I'm not patient. I told  my buddy Pork chop that i wanted to go for a walk ,  so off we set just doing laps of the ward for around ten minutes ,it was a win. I went to bed feeling like I had Taken a small step on getting my life back to normal and that I showed my self that I was "ok". 

the next morning I was Keen to show of my latest amazing feat of walking , but i hadn't perfected it yet so my Super supportive rehab specialist  sister   met me  in my room and she walked with me down to the coffee shop . It was so good just to sit there and look  around outside  and have a chat and be reassured all the things that I was feeling were normal. I wonder if she know how just twenty minutes out of her day lifted my spirits for rest of my day, i think there is a lesson in that .
 
The  next visit was from  the surgeon who dropped in to visit me this guy is the da man he had given me the best possible chance at making a full recovery with his surgical procedure, he was just amazed at me being up and mobile .  I  gave him the thumbs up and told him thanks on keeping my arms and legs still moving , he laughed  he told me that Crossfit had a big hand in saving  me ,that my love affair / OCD (obsessive crossfit disorder )with functional fitness had probably saved my life ,that my strong upper back and neck  had braced my injure when i  had sat up on the trampoline not only  once but  twice .
 He also mentioned that i could go home today if I wanted  , but that didn't last long they said one more night was needed just to monitor me oh well i had only had my broken neck fixed i guess 48 hours in hospital wasn't soooooo bad.......frick I have been lucky.
       

Disclaimer: The above is me trying to recall events over a period of time of very high dosages of pain medication and time of stress so it may have happened slightly differently but it did happen ;)  

Not sure why i'm doing this.

19th of june  a normal day with the kids until I decided I would try a back flip mmmmmm didn't end like I would have liked  as you can see from the picture . From here I was taken into emergency at the

Hospital . The whole time i was sure it was just muscular tearing ( disregard the cracking noise i had heard on impact ). 25 ml of Morphine and i was still in all kinds of pain but never thought it was very serious. All that changed after i had my X-ray all that changed .As I laid there with my neck in a brace staring at the ceiling  I heard the Doctor start swearing ..........I knew I was Fucked . I called out to him and asked what was going on "so we know why you are in so much pain mr sykes , you have c5/c6 dislocation "   mmmmmm ok so what does that mean and why is there pain running down my arms?
So I had been told there was pressure on my spinal chord and if they moved me then I would snap it. My only option was to have surgery  open reduction of c5-6 facet joint and anterior cervical decompression and fusion . what is this jargon ? what are the risks? at the end of the day it didn't matter it needed to be done.
I  was shitting my self shit just got real  so many questions were running through my head : will I be able to hold my family ever again? will i wake up a Quadriplegic? will I wake up at all? have lived the life i want to live?  it was just so surreal I'd never been in ambulance before nek minute I'm in hospital having the most important operation of my life.
As they wheeled me down to theater I said good buy to my wife ( who was putting on a brave face for me) and went into  the waiting room  chatting to the Anesthetist prior to going in we were making small talk i joked that my I wouldn't be pack marching in the near future. He told me he had been in for 20 yrs we had a bit of a chat and for a sec i had forgotten about what was about to happen. Before i know it the big doors had opened and I was breathing into a mask on my third breath i thought there is no way this thing will put me to sleep ........that was the last thing I remember.

I vaguely remember the surgical team waking me and asking me to move my feet.The next time i opened my eye I was looking at my Beautiful wife I was alive and i could move my arms and legs.
The severity of the situation still hadn't set in I didn't feel different ( that may have been the morphine ) but that was all about to change . I needed to have a shower and I was going to walk there, mmmm as I put my feet on the ground I was shaky, real shaky and very off balance, I needed help to walk.  I looked at the Nurse "is this normal?" she assured me It was normal for the circumstances..... was this how i walked from now on?  I didn't know this was all perfectly normal i was only 10 hour post-op it would take a while to get back to normal.  As I laid in bed hitting the self medication button I wondered what would happen next ,how different was my life going to be now?  And The worry I'd put my family and friends through especially my Wife ,always there with her hand on me telling me id be OK . so the there were  thoughts should i just do the the things I have been putting off or unsure about? Full time army? PT course etc all the hard questions , I mean this was my second chance , what would you do with a second chance?  Today i read a article http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2013/07/08/368788_news.html I mean this guy wasn't so fortunate , how lucky was I?

 
 Any way that's it for today I wasn't sure if id share this or if I would do it just for me  but i think ill share it.
 I was shown This http://mirandaoldroyd.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/crossfit-is-dangerous-and-how-it-very.html and it has  given me hope and  goal to get back to how I was prior to the accident I know that its not going to be easy but I will do it , I have the love and support of a amazing group of friends and family but I will write more about them later. I  just hope that my blog could help somebody in a similar situation to me.

Leigh sykes