5.
The initial days following Charlotte’s accident were marked by an elite athlete’s structure.
She kept a diary of the time, one she shared with coaches from OCWK. The journal reads as a catalogue of small steps: ‘Nov 8, 2009: I was force fed some shepherd’s pie – which I spent the rest of the night bringing back up.’ ‘Nov 9: Was able to stand with the help of a physio, morphine, and laughing gas. Could maximally inhale .75L of air.’ ‘Nov 10: walked to the curtain and back, no laughing gas because risk of re-puncturing lungs.’ ‘Nov 11: walked entire length of hall with only one physio. Coughed and air came out of hole in chest.
Initially confined to the bed, Charlotte’s heart rate was incredibly low. Doctors thought something was wrong with her. When George walked in, a confused Charlotte explained the situation. ‘They think I’m really bad,’ she said. ‘They think there’s something wrong with my heart. But there’s not.’
Charlotte was in intensive care for a week. Her father, Mark Roach, found the process harrowing. He couldn’t help but to think about how many people never made it out.
It was the banter – or rather, lack thereof – in intensive care that Charlotte would remark upon in her emails to friends. The small amusements were easy for her to share. What Charlotte didn’t mention was the battle she was fighting. In those initial days, sleep evaded her. Charlotte would stare into space for hours. She had begun to realise just how close to death she had been – and what a burden she had become.
Broken, she was a failed investment, a failed athlete, a failure.
‘She got increasingly frustrated with what she couldn’t do. Emotionally, she would get down – which you really wouldn’t associate with Charlotte at all,’ said George.
‘It was almost like: “I don’t really need the help”, but then it would get overwhelming, and she would realise “Actually, I need the help”. And then she would feel bad. She kept thinking that people kept going out of their way. She thought she was a burden, which was completely wrong – but in her head, that’s what she felt like.’
Charlotte started to force herself to sit up, to move out of the bed, to take steps. On day five, she tried walking alone and fell. She didn’t tell anyone. If she did, she knew they would want to stop her and hold her back. Besides, the nursing staff were busy enough. They didn’t need her as an additional responsibility – even if, she noted with grim humour at one point, her walk was still more ‘troll’ than ‘stroll’.
‘She kept pushing herself to the limit. We were trying to get her to go at the right pace. She wanted to run before she could walk – literally, in this case,’ said Mark.
As soon as Charlotte realised she could walk by herself, she did it again. And again. She would march up and down the intensive care unit, dragging her stands and fluids and drains behind her. The pain was something she kept to herself.
On day eight, Charlotte stood in front of a mirror. Swollen but unable to eat due to nausea from the morphine, Charlotte felt completely deformed. Her torso was twisted and hunched. Her right shoulder slumped strangely, dropping down and off. She had become a broken figure overnight. Yet function was more important, she reminded herself. It wasn’t about beauty. It was about getting back to where she once was.
On day ten, British Triathlon arranged a hospital visit. Charlotte anticipated the meeting almost despite herself. She knew she was damaged. She realised it would make sense for the scheme to drop her. But she had been close to the Olympics, so close, and she believed if they just gave her a chance she could get there again.
Except Charlotte was already off the scheme. Within the first few days of her accident, Christina and Mark spoke with British Triathlon. The organisation ‘confirmed there would be no way back and no help,’ said Christina. It was a message Christina, angry and protective, forbade them from uttering while her daughter was still in recovery. In her mind, the group had spent over four months trying to persuade Charlotte to join the team. Suddenly, the entire thing didn’t even seem to be worth the paper it was written on. She wanted to guard Charlotte from that.
So Charlotte knew nothing. As officials from British Triathlon stood at her bedside, the athlete felt increasingly bewildered and frustrated by the series of pleasantries that lacked any firm logistics. She wanted a training scheme and solid plans. Instead she received words of caution and concern. By the end of the meeting, she felt empty and unsure, certain only that British Triathlon had no vision for her.
Charlotte made a decision: she wasn’t going to sit back and wait for her bones to heel, and then get the green light from the folks in Loughborough. She would do it herself, organise her own training regime, create her own schedule, and reshape her body into what it once was.
It would be a tough route, she knew. But she always struggled to stay on the easy path.
Can’t wait for the rest? Get the full ebook version of A Long Ride Home now.
