Back on Track. How I Recovered From a Life-Changing Accident and Got Back on The Podium by Fiona Ford

Author:Fiona Ford [Ford, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782553809
Publisher: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.
Published: 2015-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Progressing my rehabilitation to the next stage with the help of a specialist physical trainer was the next main breakthrough. Working through rehabilitation exercises and physio every day it was obvious in the five months since the accident that I needed to regain muscular strength to facilitate the links between function and my previous sports.

I started weekly strength and conditioning sessions with a focus on form, monitoring how my back and spine stabilised through a series of progressive loading exercises. A significant emphasis on core control was necessary from the early stages, and it was surprising how difficult the smallest range of movement quickly felt unsupported. Many exercises focused also on balance and stabilisation through the legs and hips, as my right leg was limited in range compared with the left. It was also sore on a regular basis throughout the week, as a result of increasing my mobility and time on legs working and beginning to carry light items around.

The strength sessions helped to functionally prepare the body for increasingly more independent and working life, with the overall aim to transition back into swimming, cycling and eventually running. I saw it as a long-term project and enjoyed being back in the gym again. Even though all of the exercises seemed very basic, I could feel how beneficial they were afterwards and struggled to do them initially on my own after the guided sessions with the trainer, Bruce.

At the six-month stage post accident I made arrangements to streamline my physiotherapy appointments and process for time efficiency. Having multiple appointments at different practices was detracting massively from the practicalities of trying to re-establish my business and coaching activities. From a recovery perspective I sought a more holistic, functional, whole-body approach and decided to self-fund private sessions with one physiotherapist.

It was immediately obvious this was a good decision. With a single appointment each week and the same therapist for continuity, a systematic approach was undertaken to work through the combined and separate issues prevailing from a high-speed accident. The knock-on effects to other areas of the body, compensation in unexpected ways and varied recovery times for each injury site all had to be factored in and reviewed as a whole rather than parts. Since weaning off the high levels of pain medication I had become aware of new aches and pains, including an area behind my shoulder blades. It was highlighted when I returned to swimming and tried to rotate left and right with an arm extended, and I had difficulty breathing deeply, twisting or lifting on one side.

I visited my GP three times over a number of weeks but was told it was just a soft tissue injury which would go away. It didn’t. In the end my physiotherapist assessed the area and confirmed there seemed to be a problem with the rib and possibly some vertebrae. I went back to the doctor and was referred for a chest X-ray and MRI scan of the thoracic spine.

I only had a limited number of sessions with the physio, and I was keen to utilise them well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.