IT began as a minor irritant at the end of a great day on Bidean nam Bian. It was the beginning of summer as I wandered down through Coire an Lochan and became aware of an irritating pain on the inside of my knee. Within a couple of days the pain had reduced to a dull ache.
A couple of weeks later I was filming with the BBC on the Isle of Arran. As part of the programme we climbed Goat Fell and such is the nature of filming that we took our time, stopping every so often to position the camera and film me taking a few steps uphill or recording a piece to camera.
All went well, I felt fit and relatively strong and we all enjoyed the superb summit views across to the wonderful peaks of A’Chir and Cir Mhor. Unfortunately, as soon as I started the descent things changed dramatically.
Every downhill step was excruciating. I was moving very slowly and painfully but the situation wasn’t entirely without humour. My producer Richard Else, who is also qualified to carry a bus pass, was moving equally slowly because of an historic knee injury. Richard’s wife Meg was carrying the heavy tripod.
As the three of us hobbled down the southern ridge like extras from Last of the Summer Wine a couple of hillwalkers approached us, saw the tripod and film camera and asked us what programme we were making. Our answer, “The Adventure Show,” was amusingly ironic under the circumstances…
But age is no respecter of health, and the next morning I found it difficult to walk without pain. If I had been sitting down I had to straighten my leg very slowly before I could weight bear, getting in and out of a vehicle was very painful and my knee was hot and swollen.
At this stage I should tell you that I’ve been very fortunate during my mountain career in terms of injury. I’ve survived a couple of fairly serious accidents over the years; an avalanche in the Cairngorms left me fairly shell-shocked on one occasion and a bad fall over a crag when fell-running saw me struggling down the hill with a broken ankle and broken wrist, but overall I’ve managed to avoid the normal knee and hip problems and those wear and tear injuries that many of my contemporaries have succumbed to.
As a young man I was mad keen on track and field athletics and was a reasonably successful long jumper and sprinter. The training for long jump and triple jump put a lot of pressure on the knees and hips and I shudder when I recall I was doing full squats with 400 lbs when I was sixteen. My track career came to a premature end when the mountains began to exercise a strong pull on me and I was plagued by a series of injuries.
Achilles’ tendonitis, torn muscles, pulled hamstrings and bruised heels all formed the litany of problems that afflicted my training but curiously, in over 40 years of climbing mountains and exploring wild places I’ve rarely had a problem.
After reaching the grand old age of 60 various problems began to manifest themselves but nothing that I couldn’t manage and throughout this summer the knee problem appeared to improve. I managed to cycle the length of Ireland, and later in the year I cycled the length of the Outer Isles, from Vatersay to the Butt of Lewis, but climbing hills was a very different matter. Each time I attempted something strenuous the knee would give way and I found myself back at square one. I was too stupid to consider resting it for any length of time – when you earn a living from climbing hills you can’t afford to be away from it for too long, and the last thing the viewing public want is a television show about a long walk when the presenter can only limp and hirple.
Eventually the pain became too much and I had to cancel a filming shoot – I just couldn’t walk without it being very obvious something series was amiss.
I finally made an appointment with my doctor who diagnosed a damaged medial ligament in the right knee. This diagnosis was backed up by Julie Porteous, my sports physio in Aviemore. The prognosis? It would get better I was assured, but only if I rested it for four to six weeks. The doctor, a good friend, suggested that since I had been abusing my body, in the nicest possible way, for over 40 years by carrying heavy packs up and down hills and trails then I should expect a reasonable amount of wear and tear in my joints.
I responded by reminding him that our forefathers wandered the hills every day of their lives and managed to cope well but his answer had a certain sense of inevitability about it. Most of these folk would have been long dead and buried by the time they had reached my age. Touche…
Fortunately there was some good news amid all this gloom and doom. An x-ray showed there was no serious problem with the knee joint – no real evidence of osteo-athritis and only the usual wear and tear below the knee cap and down the front of the knee, probably caused by years of descending hills with a heavy pack. The downside was that a damaged ligament takes a while to heal. The upside is that with the proper rest and exercise it will get better.
The moral of the story is very simple. Don’t try and live with pain or injury. Don’t try and work through it, pretending it isn’t there, particularly if you are approaching, or actually living in, the autumn of your years. Do something about it and prevent it getting worse, or you could end up like me with a whole summer wasted.
Having said that, my predicament has been relatively minor. With a mammoth dose of painkillers I can still walk, I can still cycle, I can still enjoy the great outdoors to a certain extent, albeit with a little bit of discomfort, but things could have been considerably better if I had spoken to my doctor at the very beginning.
Unfortunately, ligament damage tends to take longer to heal than a bone break and I was a little shaken when my doctor told me that if a fit 21- year old footballer came to his surgery with a similar injury he would tell him he was out of the game for six months!
I’m hoping my knee will be fully recovered in time to allow me to enjoy a ski season but my problems fall into insignificance when I hear of the problems of others.
Some time ago I read a new book by an ex-Welsh international footballer John Hartson who almost died because he took a fairly cavalier attitude to discovering a lump on one of his testicles. He ignored it, and some months later he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Hartson almost died when the disease spread to his lungs and his brain. Fortunately his previous fitness and strength pulled him through and he’s now been given the all clear but he certainly regretted not taking action earlier.
Despite well-documented problems with the running of our National Health Service it is still a very effective and praiseworthy institution. Use it at the first sign of a health problem or injury. Don’t linger and merely hope things will improve. Consult a medic and get a diagnosis as early as possible. I’m sure you won’t regret it.