A few weeks ago we published the first part of Vince Golding's story about his bike crash earlier this year and his road back to recovery. It's now six months on from the trauma and time for part two.

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I previously wrote about my accident and first steps at exercise; now it’s six months on and I’ve eventually come to accept the position I find myself in. So I think it might be useful, or even helpful, to any other major road accident victim having no “visible” signs of injury to say:

• Don’t expect to pick-up your exercise where you left off it’s not like having a cold or a pulled muscle!
• It will take time, but you can start to recover, set your sights on small achievable targets
• Focus on getting fit again – don’t think about attempting a triathlon or duathlon
• It’s alright to be emotional; hysterical laughter or tears
• Brain Training on the Nintendo DS really can help to get the brain going again!

It has taken this amount of time for me to come to terms with not being able to do the exercise I took for granted. I’m running again now up to three times a week and I occasionally swim a few lengths of breaststroke after doing my rehab exercises, front crawl isn’t possible yet. I have been riding the old road bike on the turbo, although I’m a bit dubious about the (relatively high) power outputs my Polar bike gadget is indicating.

It’s a peculiar situation to find myself in; what I’ve seen on various TV programs and in the media over the years has maybe given me a false impression of what 'medicine' can do: in reality don’t expect any sort of quick and satisfactory opinion!

Medical miracles are for TV

My priority has been working on the rehabilitation exercises for my right arm, I have what the orthopaedic surgeon says is a 'complex injury'. The accident left me with four fractured ribs, broken clavicle, a still fractured scapula, severely weakened muscles and damage to the brachial plexus nerve – on the right side. The bottom line is I couldn’t, and still can’t, move the arm properly - although I have made improvements and I can now move my arm laterally to about horizontal. The physiotherapist has been giving me an ever increasing number of exercises to try and do, which I follow diligently at the health club I’m a member of. The surgeon says it’s not worth performing surgery because of the nerve damage; he could perform an operation and I’d be no better off.

I’ve been told that the damage to the nerve in my right arm could take years to recover; I’ve yet to have any good advice about my hearing problem; as for the 'traumatic brain injury' I really don’t know, obviously I’m able to sit down and type a few words – hopefully they’re understandable too! But I’ve yet to re-attempt some of the old work tasks I was doing pre-accident - they involved writing database applications. To be honest I’ve been very busy trying to rehabilitate myself physically, basically because improved mobility in my right arm won’t happen just by leaving it to get better by itself.

Keeping a positive mental attitude

But enough 'doom and gloom', I don’t want to dwell on the negatives as one thing I can definitely say is having a positive mental attitude really helps. It’s also very helpful to have the support of family, friends and club mates. I’m a member of Crawley Athletics Club and East Grinstead Triathlon Club where I’ve been humbled by their support and good wishes, special thanks to Mat and Richard.

My objective now is to train to be able to train again. I am mainly focussing on running, getting in three or four runs a week. So as not to lose touch I am also fitting in about 10 lengths a week swimming [breaststroke] after a gym rehab session and also a turbo session. The gym sessions are tough work mentally in that at first the weights were so light, they’re not that much heavier now but they are slowly getting heavier!

Thankfully the arm injury doesn’t stop me running! There’s no denying it is tough work and just doing my three plus miles, I’ve been running home after my OT sessions at Crawley Hospital, feels like I’m running the marathon in an ironman.

To race again?

I’ve even had my first 'race'. I ran in the first Sussex Cross Country League fixture of the season at Goodwood, not on the racecourse but on the nearby South Downs. It might sound trivial but it was a personal target of mine to compete and I’d been visualising running there to help send myself to sleep at night. To put my injury into context, I was grateful to run with Richard Carter who runs for Brighton & Hove AC. Richard was a junior international 5000m runner and has fairly recently recovered from surgery and chemotherapy for bladder cancer. We had both ran in the same Sussex teams in the English Schools Athletics Championships and now here we were nearly bringing up the rear in of the field in a cross-country race!

Previously I mentioned I had filled out an entry form for the Ballbuster Duathlon; I never sent it off, but I was there watching hoping, no promising, to make a return next time out!