Limpeh is limping again, aaaaargh.

Hello. Guess what people? I will be blogging a lot more at least over the next few days because I sprained my left ankle again at gymnastics. Yup it has happened yet again - so that's December 2012, October 2014 and March 2015. It is increasing frustrating as I didn't use to sprain my ankle that often when I was younger but in my late 30s, I keep getting injuries like that. I may have to face the fact that I would have to stop trying to land these complex somersaults, even on a soft mat. The risk associated with multiple twisting somersaults (which I am so fond of) is that you may mess it up and get "lost" in mid air, mid somersault. Literally, something could go wrong with the timing on the take off or you may have a lapse of concentration; suddenly you realize that you're not quite doing what you meant to do and you crash. It all happens in a split second. Usually, these crashes are on fairly soft mats so you don't get hurt. But last night, I had messed up the take off on one of those multiple twisting somersault and when I made it round to my feet, my left foot was turned out at the wrong angle and I rolled that ankle over. Another classic sprained ankle and here's the thing, I made that exact same mistake before on the same skill. Boy, I was so mad at myself that I had let this happen again. Here's the result - this photo was taken one hour after the fall when the swelling was at its worst.

How swollen is that left ankle?

For the first few minutes, I was just in so much pain that I was just focused on breathing, trying to deal with the pain that was going through my leg. Then came the moment of denial - as I sat there for an hour, unable to move, I thought, hey, maybe it's not that bad, maybe I can still walk, maybe it will heal in a few days. But then the moment I tried to stand up, I realized that I could not put any weight down on my foot and it had swollen up pretty bad despite the fact that I had iced that ankle. Luckily we had a doctor who was present at the gym at the time and he said that it was unlikely that I had broken anything in that ankle. A fellow coach was kind enough to drive me home given that I couldn't walk at all and I spent much of last night in agony. If I wanted to go to the bathroom, I had to either crawl or hop. I had taken painkillers but still could not sleep from the pain. Eventually I did knock off and when I woke up, the swelling had gone done quite a lot. Here's the photo from this morning, taken about 15 hours after the initial fall.

Still swollen but much improved after 15 hours

I also found that I could walk this morning - very carefully and slowly, but I am definitely walking. Well, limping more like. I have this awkward sideways shuffle which enables me to put as little weight as possible on that left ankle and it is working. I am also loaded up on painkillers so I am feeling pretty okay now if I sit still in a chair at my laptop, I just can't walk around very easily. The irony was that I met a woman on crutches just two days ago at my local supermarket, she was struggling with her basket of groceries whilst having both arms on her crutches. I helped her carry her basket and we chatted - she had broken her ankle whilst skiing in Chamonix and her spent 5 days in a French hospital. She had just spent 7 weeks resting (much of that with her ankle in a cast) and this was her first trip on her own to a supermarket. There was a part of me last night that was worried that it would be 7 weeks before I could even go to a supermarket on my own - but thankfully, it doesn't look that serious. It will probably take a week to recover at least - I am due to go to Manchester next week anyway so that would probably mean no training until I get back from Manchester. That is immensely frustrating for me, but I have little choice.

You know me, I lead a very active lifestyle and be forced to sit around like that for a few days, unable to walk around, run around as I wish and not go to the gym - that's just going to drive me nuts. But I have also had far more serious accidents before and I know I should be grateful that it wasn't more serious. So, if you know of any great medicines, remedies or ointments to help relieve the swelling, please leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading!