The morning everything changed
At approximately 7:40 a.m. on 27 September 2019, my Achilles tendon ruptured in a Bangkok Muay Thai gym.
People describe it as a “pop”. That word does not come close.
It sounded like a gunshot going off inside my body. My tendon recoiled towards the top of my calf, and I fell face-first to the floor like a slab of beef hitting a butcher’s tray.
Strangely, there was no immediate pain. I tried to stand, managed approximately three seconds and collapsed again—my left leg flapping beneath me like a fish pulled from the water.
My first emotion was panic.
Like many people, I had heard stories about athletes rupturing their Achilles and hearing a distinctive pop. I can tell you with absolute certainty: you really do hear it.
Broken in more ways than one
That morning exposed how vulnerable I really was—and how quickly life can change.
Seven days earlier, I had lost the job I had moved halfway around the world to take. With hindsight, it was a position I probably should never have accepted.
My health insurance had expired two days before the accident.
I was alone, lying on the floor of a third-floor Muay Thai gym in Bangkok. It was approximately 34 degrees, there was no air conditioning and the building had no lift.
Physically and mentally, I had reached rock bottom.
That day became the beginning of rebuilding—not simply rebuilding my leg, but rebuilding myself.
Sometimes you have to be broken before you can be rebuilt.
Then COVID changed the rules
Only months later, COVID closed the world around me.
Access to doctors, physiotherapists and rehabilitation facilities became extremely difficult. I was in Phuket and much of my recovery had to be undertaken alone.
There was no regular physiotherapist standing beside me, correcting each movement or reassuring me that I was progressing. YouTube became my rehabilitation guide. I watched demonstrations, studied exercises and tried to understand what my body could safely tolerate.
Recovery became a daily experiment involving determination, repetition, uncertainty and occasionally painful mistakes.
I had to listen carefully to my body, decide what advice I could trust and keep moving forward without knowing whether I was doing everything correctly.
Rehabilitation is rarely inspirational while you are living through it
Rehabilitation really sucked.
It was tiring, painful, expensive and frightening. Progress came in increments so small that they were often impossible to see from one day to the next.
I consider myself a highly motivated person, but there were days when I could not get out of bed. Sometimes I had pushed too hard and was overwhelmed by pain. On other days, I simply could not face how long recovery was taking.
Across two surgeries, setbacks and 21 months of rehabilitation, I spent six weeks in plaster and seven months in a moon boot.
The boot was originally expected to remain for five months. Then I fell down a flight of stairs and had to wear it for another two. After that came approximately ten weeks walking with a cane.
Every milestone seemed to reveal another stage still waiting ahead.
What the specialists told me
Two specialists told me I might never walk normally again.
They were wrong.
Today, I walk normally.
I was also told that I would probably never run as I once had because relatively few people over 35 fully recover from a severe Achilles rupture.
On that point, they were right.
I cannot run on a treadmill or on the road as I once did. Instead, I run against the resistance of water in the swimming pool. It protects my Achilles while allowing me to maintain my cardiovascular fitness, strength and mobility.
I also incorporated yoga into my training. At times, it feels harder than my regular gym workouts—but it has become another important part of rebuilding what I lost.
Recovery does not mean returning to who you were
This is not a story that pretends adversity is a gift.
The experience was lonely, painful, frightening and financially draining. I would never choose to repeat it.
But it changed me.
It made me more determined to succeed, more aware of how fragile independence can be and more thoughtful towards people living with injuries, disabilities or challenges that the rest of us cannot immediately see.
My Achilles rupture took away my ability to run as I once did. It did not take away my ability to keep moving.
Everyone encounters adversity. Sometimes it arrives gradually. Sometimes it sounds like a gunshot going off inside your body.
Overcoming it does not always mean returning to the person you were before. Sometimes it means accepting what has changed, adapting to a new reality and deciding—with patience, humility and determination—who you will become next.
