Two Fairly Significant Disasters…. but Still a Perfect Winter!

DISCLAIMER: I should probably start by explaining why I haven’t written anything for over a year, but every time I’ve tried to do that recently, I’ve failed after barely even getting started. So I’m not gonna do that, instead I’m just going to fire straight back in to an update and hope the explanation can find it’s way on to the page at some point in the near future. So here we go…..

I should have known that things were going too well; After a perfect Chamonix summer that seemed to last almost all the way up until winter’s early start back in November, seven perfect months of winter activities; skiing with fabulous people, in generally great conditions, ticking off lines I’d only dreamt of last year and making easy work of things I’d previously struggled with, I should have expected something to go wrong at some point.

Sure enough, in the height of winter, mid February, and for the first time in a while, my world made a pretty significant attempt at crashing down around me. On the way to go skiing one day, I made a stop to collect some friends before driving up the valley to our chosen location. I pulled up and waited for them, we loaded the skis and boards in to Effy-van and went to drive away, only to be met with a pure refusal from Effy to do anything at all. After a number of attempts to make her work and several alarming sounds occurring in the process, we realised that our attempts were futile and she would have to stay behind. Obviously, we still went skiing; something as small as my house, transport and container for all my life’s belongings briefly breaking down would not be enough to keep us from a powder day.

I had noticed a small issue with the van a week or so previous to this happening; I was again, waiting in the van to collect a friend, when she suddenly launched forwards and the engine stalled (concerning, since she has an automatic gearbox), but next time I went to drive her, and for the week following, there was nothing wrong and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what had caused it. So I began to forget all about it. This time however, there was no forgetting….. When I returned to where she had died later that day, tired from skiing, hoping by some miracle that she would have had time to sit there and think about her actions and decide to work, I was highly disappointed. There was nothing I could do, everything I tried to make her work, failed, and having zero mechanical knowledge, I had no idea what was wrong.

Eventually, after having her looked at by a mechanic and being dissapointed to hear that it was likely to be her gearbox and she would have to go to Renault to find out the full extent of the damage, it started to hit me, just how significant this could be. Even my limited mechanical know-how knew it sounded bad.

When you choose to live full time in your van, it becomes your lifeline; all your belongings housed within those four, small, metal walls, your transport and access to the outside world? – just the cab attached to the front of the little home you worked so hard to build for yourself, food, skis, climbing gear, laptop, it’s all there. Still, even with all of this slowly dawning on me, I tried to remain positive; After all, Effy is a Renault and we are in France, her home country, if she can get fixed quickly anywhere, it would be here.

A few days after her breakdown, she was loaded on to a truck and taken to the nearest Renault garage (only 1km away and for the bargain price of €300 :l) I was okay now, they had said they would look at her and diagnose her in the next few days and to me this spelled the start of a quick return to business for her. How wrong I was…..

Upon looking at her, they almost instantly diagnosed that she would need a whole new gearbox and suggested it was likely to cost in excess of €5000, but they would be unable to do the work as they not only did not work on automatic gearboxes, but Effy, at 3.1m tall, was also too big to fit in their garage….. Cue a whole day of calling round many, many garages within a 60km radius (one of my wonderfully helpful friends did the calling, I might add, as my French is totally insufficient for this kind of thing) Eventually, after calling so many garages I lost count, we found one, another Renault garage, in Cluses: They could deal with both the automatic box and could accommodate Effy’s loftiness, so we made the arrangements for her to go there, which she did around a week or so later.

Unfortunately even though she was already there, they could not fit her in to re-diagnose her for almost another two weeks, so she just sat there, outside, feeling sad and lonely. At this time, I was also feeling kind of sad and lonely; My perfect little home on wheels, which I had relied so heavily and faithfully on for the last year and a half, had been ripped out from underneath my feet and I was reduced to living out of IKEA bags, hauling clothes and ski gear and from house to house as I tried to beg, borrow and steal nights on sofa’s from my fortunately, very accommodating friends. I did however learn to navigate the Chamonix bus network fairly efficiently though, so I guess even disasters can have their positives.

Evenutally D-Day came around and the new garage once again confirmed that her gearbox was broken, but they would not have to replace the whole thing, just some parts. This was still going to cost over €4000, but it was cheaper than expected and they were the professionals, so we; me and Shea, my friend and willing french expert translating for me, told them to go ahead.

A little over two weeks later, I went to collect her. I couldn’t have been more excited, after a month and a half since she broke down, I was finally getting my baby back. (I have said since my very first month in the van that the relationship between Effy and me is the most serious relationship I’ve ever had, and she is about as close to having a child as I will ever get) I drove her back up to Chamonix, beaming with adoration for my tiny home. But it was to be pretty short lived….Two days later, she broke again.

I couldn’t believe it, How was this possible? It was quite obviously the same problem as before, so what would happen now? Would the garage accept responsibility for the problem? Would I have to pay for the work all over again? How long was Effy going to be out of action this time? What if it was so bad that she couldn’t be fixed at all? All these questions and more spiralled around in my head, and this time, I couldn’t shake it. My positive attitude towards the situation that I had managed to maintain before, was gone. I’d just spent the last month and half taking advantage of everyones good nature while they drove me around and let me stay at their houses, and now I was going to have to ask people to do that for me all over again?! I was in full meltdown now.

Fortunately, I had managed get back to my normal parking place at Lac des Gaillands just as she was dying so I didn’t have to get her towed away from an awkward spot. This at least gave me a base, up until the point that the garage came to collect her again. I could also, in this time, use her as accommodation, which I did for around a week. Unfortunately after this time, my gas started to run out and for the first time since I built the van, I discovered the downside to a refillable LPG system; If you can’t move your vehicle, you can’t get gas and without gas, I would have no heating and no cooking facilities. This started to spell the end, yet again for Effy’s suitability as accommodation….it was still cold enough to need the heating and even though I tried to make the gas last by only using it for cooking; Instead wrapping myself up my down sleeping bag and as many blankets and clothes as I could find, eventually cooking took the gas down to zero.

• 

  The changeable conditions while Effy was stranded ranged from sun

• 

  …to snow

• 

  Meaning once the heating died, all the winter gear had to come out.

Luckily I had some friends that could still find it within themselves to put up with me and my IKEA bags moving back in to their houses, and this I am so, so grateful for. After everything everyone had done for me already, I almost couldn’t bare to ask anymore. I can only imagine if this had happened when I arrived for my first winter and didn’t really know anyone in Chamonix in December 2017 (for a three week holiday, which eventually resulted in me deciding to never leave) and the van broke down for a week; Luckily, that time, my UK breakdown cover paid for me to stay in a hotel while the van was fixed. But imagine if a breakdown of this magnitude had happened then? I would have had no choice but to have had the van repatriated back to the UK. I wonder if I would still have ended up moving to Chamonix if that had been the case? But now, I have no breakdown cover, and even if I did, they would never have supported me for the amount of time I would have needed them to this time around. Fortunately, I’ve come a long way and established connections with such amazing people since then that I was able to make it through this breakdown epic….I promise it does have a happy ending. 😉

Now I’ll cut through the next few weeks as there was a lot of phone calls backwards and forwards to the garage, initially arranging for the van to be collected and taken back on the truck again and then trying to get some information with what was going on with it, not being able to speak to who we needed to everytime we phoned, just how much of the work they were going to accept responsibility for, and how much the final bill was going to end up at. After another, very long month and a half, they finally phoned to say she was ready.

Shea, who had still been speaking to the garage for me, came to pick me up, and off we went; Along with a slightly scary looking dog that I was looking after for a friend for the day, to collect the van from down the valley. On arriving at the garage, I couldn’t even see Effy, I was almost expecting to hear that they had not been able to fix her and had just scrapped her: I’d reached such a point with it and spent so long stressing about it that I almost considered that might have been a relief to hear. But no, sure enough she was fixed; This time they had replaced her whole gearbox, clutch, pump for the transmission fluid and a few other things that I have no idea what they are. They had also test driven her and done everything to ensure that this time, she really was ready to come home. I paid another considerably large bill, bringing the grand total to over €7000 (about what I had bought Effy for pre-conversion) and drove her back home.

This time I could really feel the difference, she was driving beautifully and I breathed a sigh of relief, realising that after just over three months since she first broke down, the drama was probably over.

• 

I realise it may come across as overly dramatic to hear me complaining about having to live out of IKEA bags and be without a car, I mean how hard could it be? I mean, you can go travelling for a lot more than three months just living out of a relatively small backpack: Clothes, shower supplies, food, maybe even a laptop, they all fit in to a backpack relatively easily. But that would be fairly unlikely in a winter holiday destination such as Chamonix and when you factor that in, the amount of things you need to carry around with you rapidly increases: At least one set of skis, ski boots, poles, ski pants and jacket, plus other layers, ski bag and avalanche gear, harness, ropes, ice screws, crampons, ice axes, mountain boots, climbing gear, down jacket, Sorels, extra winter clothing, clothing for when it decides to be warm, plus all the normal gear and more, soon that one backpack has turned in to multiple large bags and boxes. A lack of a vehicle would also not normally cause an issue, public transport in Chamonix is great, and free. But only one month after Effy first broke, a large proportion of the roads in Chamonix started getting dug up for road works, meaning that the buses were skipping all of the stops near to where I was staying. The trains were also under maintenance at the same time.

This being said, I am not taking my position for granted in the slightest. I realise that these are entirely first world problems and will add, that despite the faff of moving from house to house, living out of carrier bags, having limited access to your belongings and the guilt of having to rely on other people for these things, I am in no way sympathizing for myself, my life was still pretty damn good, inconvenient at times, but awesome! I was still skiing most days, Chamonix had become quieter as the season had progressed and the tourists gone home, the snow was still good and I was still very much having a great time.

But of course, luck, karma or whatever it was, wasn’t done with me yet; I think it believes I’ve been having far too much fun here over the last eighteen months, doing all the things I love and working as little as possible. So not even two weeks after getting Effy back, I went up for what I had decided, would more than likely be my last day of skiing for this season; It was getting really warm now, the conditions becoming more dangerous and the psyche level slowly dropping. Nevertheless, me and my friend Jaakko headed up the Aiguille du Midi to ski the Glacier Rond.

We didn’t have a particularly early start, but not too late in the grand scheme of things. An added bonus of heading up a little later was that one of our friends, Flo had already done the Rond that day and reported back that it was in pretty good condition, albeit with the exit couloir the worst anyone had ever ridden it in, but we decided to go for it anyway. The midi was fairly quiet when we got up there, having missed the early morning pushing and shoving that is so common this time of year as everyone fights to get on the first bin. We had a casual walk down the arete, now unequipped, and then skied off in the direction of the Rond.

It was fairly stress free, we saw a group of people heading for the Cosmiques, and no one going our way. We made our way around to the entrance, the snow that we could see at the top didn’t look amazing, but we decided to go in anyway, there was of course a small amount of faff; As you pick your way through the rocks, step over and under the old cables that are left there from the lift stations of the past and deal with a small section of scraped out snow where the early bird skiers have been in before. But once this small amount of hassle at the top is out of the way, you bring your heart-rate back to normal after the usual increase a steep skiing noob like me gets just before committing to something potentially deathy and get ready to go.

I was still mildly nervous about how chopped up the snow looked at the start, even though I could see it should improve fairly quickly, so I put my brave pants on, put in my first turn and was pleasantly surprised. The snow was soft and easy to ski, any fear I had was gone and the full psyche I had been so used to in mid winter, instantly returned. We made our way down without an issue, eventually reaching the exit couloir. Obviously we had already been warned about the condition of this, but we were hoping it may have improved and softened slightly in the sun, in the few hours that had passed since we were informed. This was not the case; It was hard, refrozen snow, wind affected in places, avalanche debris scattered around and now the sun was making everything warm. It was pretty much everything we didn’t want but we were here now, so we had to get down one way or another….

I put a turn in right at the top, thinking I could brave my way through it, nope, it was just as awful as expected, next to impossible to ski for me to ski properly and definitely safer for me to not try. I think I only managed about three more turns the whole way down it, the rest I just side slipped. Finally we got to the bottom, looked back up at it and were glad it was done, now we just had the slog back to the mid station at Plan de l’Aiguille. We took a short rest, ate some sweeties and drank some water and started making our way back around towards the traverse underneath the North Face of the Midi.

Not long before reaching the old mid station, we were traversing across mild ground, moving fairly quickly as we could see the snow loaded on the slopes around us transforming fast. Following a little track put in by the people that had come before us and smashing through the occasional small piece of old avalanche debris, I suddenly hit a piece that defeated me; It forced my downhill ski tip down in to the snow, stopping me dead and rotating me, my boot pointing down, still firmly attached in my dialed-up binding, causing my whole body to pivot around my knee. Despite doing a bit of yoga, I am in no way blessed with the flexibility of someone who can turn themselves in to a pretzel, so naturally something had to give, namely my knee. I lay there screaming for a few moments realizing what had happened. A small amount of panic started to set in; the reason we were going so fast on the traverse was to avoid hanging around any avalanchey zones for too long, I was in agony and I couldn’t see Jaakko even though I knew he was just in front of me around the corner, I knew I couldn’t stay there regardless of the pain I was in so I had to try and do something to enable myself to move. Gritting my teeth, I threw my body downhill, pulling my ski out of the snow and luckily, my knee back in to place. Screaming still or again, I can’t remember which, I tried to get myself on my feet, hoping with a large amount of adrenaline on my side, I might be able to ski to safety with my weight on my uphill ski. I managed a few meters of flat snow, before I caught my downhill ski on a bump, sending an extra wave of pain up my leg. Quickly I resigned myself to the fact it was not going to happen.

Jaakko had skied only slightly ahead and was just only just out of sight and earshot so had no idea all of this was happening until I came dragging myself around the corner squealing, sobbing, covered in snow and just in a general mess. He helped me to a safe-ish spot where we could sit and assess the damage. I knew I had dislocated my knee, but I was somewhat hopeful that I could wait for ten minutes and then pull myself together enough to haul myself back to the mid station. It turned out fairly quickly that this was not the case.

Resigning myself to the inevitable, I reluctantly agreed to the calling of the PGHM. After a short phone call, despite having to go off to conduct another rescue first, in less than ten minutes the helicopter was flying towards us. Being too steep to land, the pilot placed the front of the chopper on the slope to allow two of the rescue team to jump out and then flew off again. They came over, strapped up my leg and got us ready to be picked up. They had decided to take both of us down in the chopper as it was getting too late in the day and after a short discussion with Jaakko about what his plans were, decided it was getting too dangerous for them to allow anyone to stay up on the mountain alone. As the helicopter would not be able to land, they would have to winch us up on the long line in to the chopper. I would go first with one of the rescue team and then Jaakko would come up with the other with the skis and bags. Pain aside, I have to admit this experience was quite fun. We spun pretty ferociously on the line as we were hauled up from the down wind from the blades, this was all fun and games until it came to us getting in to the chopper itself, as we were spinning so violently the person trying to help from inside had to grab hold of us, to stop the spinning so we could be pulled in and in doing so, I managed to hit my leg pretty hard again on the side of the chopper. But the relief once we got inside seemed to dampen the pain slightly.

In no time at all, we were landing in the outskirts of Chamonix where they dropped off Jaakko and all of our gear, I threw my van keys to Jaakko incase I needed him to come and get me from the hospital and then before I knew it, we were then taking off again and heading down the valley. I don’t really remember much of the flight to be honest, and in what I can only describe as the quickest journey to Sallanches I have ever experienced, I had arrived at the hospital. Highly dosed up on very strong painkillers, I had a fuzzy couple of hours of waiting and blissfully staring at walls in my opiated state. Fortunately I had a visit from a couple of friends, Shea and Naira who came to draw me out of said state, occupy me for a few hours and boost my spirits, they even brought a picnic basket.

After a relatively small time waiting, especially if compared to hospitals in the UK, they examined my knee and sent me straight for an X-Ray, less than 20 minutes later, it was examined again by another doctor and a specialist, who instantly suspected damage to my meniscus, MCL, ACL and PCL. I was given an order for an MRI in the following days to determine just how many ligaments I’d manage to destroy and to what extent, physio once the damage had been revealed and a prescription for crutches, leg braces and more painkillers and drugs than I’ve ever seen, then I was free to go.

It was all wrapped up and dealt with in less than four hours, then just a quick trip to the pharmacy to collect everything I would need to get me through the next couple of weeks; This blew my mind. Due to being fairly accident prone, and courtesy of a large amount of horse related accidents, although still not able to acquire an interest in any non dangerous past times; I have had my fair share of A&E experiences in the UK, both positive and negative, but no matter what, one thing they never were was fast. I’m not criticizing the NHS at all, my body would be in very many pieces and a lot more clunky than it currently is if it wasn’t for them, but I was just blown away by the efficiency of the French system. Their willingness to dish out painkillers that actually work and the quick response when it came to booking my MRI are just a couple of noticeable differences. In the UK something like an MRI would take months to get an appointment, but in France, they offered me one in just a week, and if I had been working full time, they would have given me one straight away. It’s also nice, not being left to suffer from a pretty painful injury with only paracetamol. If there’s a choice between paying for health care or having insurance or getting it for free, based on experiences, I think I prefer the paid version.

The time generally passed fairly quickly between my crash and the MRI appointment, even though I was reduced to doing next to nothing except for limping around saying ouch. Although occasionally time seemed to stop as small realizations dawned on me that there were many things I was hoping to occupy my summer with (Climbing, biking, flying, hiking, even swimming and van trips) that were definitely out of the question, at least for now. Pull ups and upper body exercises did find a new found priority in my life however.

MRI day came and off I went to the hospital in a very apprehensive state…..After dealing with what I can only describe as an ‘absoulte bitch’ of a receptionist who just seemed to want to make my life more awkward, arguing with me about my microdermal piercings that I have in my back, which incidentally turned out to be fine. The scan was actually over and done with pretty quickly. I waited for a short while before they called me back in to speak to someone who would explain the results to me. It was good news and bad news. My PCL was not damaged at all, (first positive), my meniscus was considerably damaged, but fortunately in a place which should heal itself with proper physio and rehab, (second positive). Then came the ones I was worried about, the MCL, as I had suspected, was completely torn, (first negative) but then they surprised me by saying that it too, should theoretically heal itself without surgery (yay another positive), then the ACL; Being me, it was never going to be a straightforward answer, and I’m probably an idiot for expecting it to be. They could see a tear in the ACL but couldn’t determine if it was severe enough to require surgery, they also wanted to get a better image of where the ligament attaches to the bone as if they found any damage there, it would definitely need operating on. They then informed me that they would be referring me to a specialist for a further MRI with contrast to enable them to see in more detail.

Luckily I managed to get the appointment for the second MRI in just another week and in the week that passed between the two scans, my knee actually started to feel much better; While wearing my knee brace, I can now put weight on it, I can do a small amount of limpy steps in my brace without the crutches and bending my knee is becoming more comfortable. My left leg however has shrunk dramatically in size in just the three weeks since the accident. Its terrifying to see how quickly muscle atrophies without proper/any use. To keep my brain intact, I have also had a few little trips out, mainly watching other people bouldering, but trying a little bit in a very controlled careful manner, I’ve been swimming and had lunch dates with the girls and figured out I can still belay for people, in all honesty, it’s actually been quite nice at times.

Well second MRI day came, and I don’t want to say it’s good news, because there are still some grey areas that could cause some problems along the way with the healing process. But the specialist, pretty much confirmed everything that I had already been told, but with the extra detail that could be seen on the ACL tears felt that it would start to heal effectively by itself. Apparently I am about as lucky as its possible to be, to have dislocated my knee and caused this level of damage to my MCL and meniscus, but with fairly minimal damage to my ACL, less than a millimeter more of damage to either my meniscus or ACL and I would be having every ligament operated on. Fortunately for me, the decision was made not to recommend me for surgery at this point due to a small amount of evidence on the MRI to suggest my ligaments have started trying to heal themselves already and if they continue to do so, my healing time with or without surgery is likely to be the same. Instead I have been recommended at least 40 hours of physio, a transition to a hinged knee brace that will limit how much flexion and extension I can have in my knee that can be adjusted regularly at a pace I need to agree with my doctor until I have full range of motion again, and a very careful, well supported start to weight bearing on that leg again. Another dislocation will guarantee my place in surgery and probably put an end to winter 19/20 for me, but lets hope that doesn’t happen.

Sooo…..needless to say, I’m feeling pretty happy, I was dreading the thought of surgery, not for the actual surgery itself, but the cost, having to spend time in hospital, the initial recovery from it and return to complete uselessness after just starting to regain a little independence in the last week and many more things. Another thing I have to be truly, truly thankful for in this situation, is that Effy is back up and running, and as much of a nightmare as her automatic gearbox has caused me, without it, I would not be able to drive. I am so grateful to have my freedom to keep me slightly more mentally sane while I’m laid limited on the physical side of the activity front, and as much as these two incidents have been individual disasters in themselves, especially with the injury far from over, I have to be thankful for the little things. This is obviously not the end of it and I’m going to have a long few months of rehab, physio and a slow return to various forms of exercise, but I’ve had a perfect winter in spite of everything thats happened and the best news…? This ski addicted, snow loving girl will get to ski again and you can bet yourself I’m gonna get this leg as strong, if not stronger than before. Winter 19/20 come at me baby!!

Thanks to everyone that helped me out with both of my disasters however big or small, I don’t know how I would have made it through without your help. Shea, Matt, Jaakko, Naira, Basha, Max, Liz, Mum and Dad, you have all been incredible and I thank you so so much. Also to everyone else who helped or just asked how things were going. You are all wonderful people.