Some History- Winter 06/07

This trip is well overdue. It was paid for about 18 months ago and then I was struck down by horrific knee injury. A ruptured ACL, MCL and torn lateral and medial meniscus sustained during a touch football game in the Touch world cup between my adoptive country Switzerland and the country of residence of my immediate family, New Zealand, on 21 January 2007 sent me back to the drawing board. I remember writhing on the pitch in Stellenbosch, South Africa (my country of birth) and the first thought that came into my mind, once my lower leg had been relocated and my mind cleared from the blackness of the pain, was that I wouldn't be heliboarding in Kamchatka in 3 months time. I sent a text to Tony

Sitting in Ponky Firer's knee consulting room at the Linksfield clinic a few days later I held onto hope that I could have key-hole surgery to repair the menisci, brace my leg and hit the gym hard for the next few months and postpone the surgery until after my trip. I had hardly finished when he grabbed my knee, gave it a yank (also known as the lachmann test), and stopped me mid sentence. "You aren't going anywhere near a mountain soon" he interrupted, "Let alone to one of the most remote places in the world where access is only possible by helicopter. Not under my watch!".

I returned to Switzerland for the surgery but because it was now 10 days after the injury and my muscles had begun to atrophy and I had lost range of motion, I was prescribed 6 weeks of prehab in the gym with my physio. There is something quite demoralising about getting into the gym to build your strength, only to know that a surgeon is later going to go in with his scalpel and undo all your hard work. I am told that it brings down your post op recovery time.

I am not going to bore you with the details of the surgery, the hours and hours of rehab, my new best friend, Dani my physio, or all the names of all the new artists I discovered while blasting my ipod while I heaved on the leg press, pounded away on the tread mill and balanced precariously on my balance ball for hours.

I would like to thank the following people though:

Daniel Geiger, Dr Marcel Schibli, the kind nurses (especially the pretty one that only appeared on the last night of my week long stay) and brilliant staff at the Hirslanden Clinic, Kimberly Melville-Smith for her patience and TLC, all the people that came to visit me, Zurich Insurance for fitting the substantial bill, Migros for their brilliant home delivery service (your fresh vegetables can do with some work), everyone at the Zurich Sports Clinic and everyone in the snowboarding industry that makes it such a cool sport that gave me the will power to get back to the mountain, stronger, fitter, and better than I ever was before. Absinthe Films and Nico Muller need a special mention there!