Wide awake at 5am.
I can hear Vanessa’s slow, gentle breathing in the room next door, still fast asleep. Nothing to do but lie and think, watching the window for any sign of dawn approaching.
I go through the usual rigmarole of manoeuvring myself onto my side to pee into the plastic bottle by the bed, then shuffle back into a prone position, leg elevated on its mountain of cushions.
My mind wanders, but a growing ache on the inside of my right ankle soon gives me something to focus on. Moving about always seems to get the blood circulating, which brings the pain back. I’m on less pain medication than I was at the hospital, but the pain doesn’t seem any worse.
Do I need to take another tablet? I wonder.
Instead, I just lie there and let the pain build. I know there will be plenty of painful moments ahead—part of the long road to recovery.
And then, something shifted in my head. This pain wasn’t a bad thing to fear, avoid, or medicate away. This was healing happening. This was my body repairing bone, healing flesh, fighting off infection.
I suddenly saw my lower leg as a vivid construction site: scaffolding being erected around the bone running from ankle to knee, like a crew preparing to tear down a damaged building before rebuilding it.
And of course, my construction crew has a foreman. His name is Bob.
I’ve tried to think of a better name—“Bob the Builder” feels too predictable—but nothing else fits. Sometimes the crew call him Bobby, but to most he’s simply “Boss.”
Bob is a bit like Quint, Robert Shaw’s character in Jaws—only with a North-Eastern English accent. He’s brash, arrogant, supremely confident in his work, and has no time for authority. He’s fair, though, and his men like and respect him.
In my imagination, as the pain in my leg swells, Bob has just taken a phone call from some pen-pusher in an admin department. A hasty memo has come down from headquarters: Pain increasing—tell them to stop.
“Stop?” Bob laughs into the receiver. “I’ve got a work order here to get this scaffolding in place by the end of the week. The White Cell Team are already clearing the dead material and tidying the site, and repair supplies are arriving by the truckload. There’s no stopping this, son. If they’ve got complaints, tell head office to deal with the pain at their end.”
He slams the phone down and mutters: “Bloody pen-pushing idiots…”
Bob looks up at the rising framework of pipes and planks, proud of his crew swarming across it. He barks a few orders:
- “Marko, make sure the safety gear’s installed before they start on level four.”
- “Digger, shore up the ankle end. We’ll need far more support there.”
- “Davie, good work—once that’s sorted, get up to the knee and make sure they’re on schedule. Clock’s ticking.”
Malc, clipboard in hand, laughs as he checks off a delivery. “Biggest job we’ve ever had, eh Bobby?”
“Too right Milky,” Bob grins. “But we’ve had plenty of practice on the smaller stuff.”
And Bob has. His CV as Body Maintenance Manager, Structural Department, is impressive:
- First major gig: left clavicle, broken in a cycling crash at age 12.
- Rumours of a broken nose at 17 after a town-centre altercation (but the Blood Crew said no structural repair required).
- Various twisted ankles—one from jumping off a wall at age 9 (The Common Sense Department was roasted for that one), another from missing a step in a dark stairwell in his early 20s, and a more serious motorbike start-line smash in his late 20s.
- A paragliding knee twist in his late 40s kept complaints about pain coming in from HQ for over a year.
But considering the adventures over the decades, Bob and his crew have mostly had a quiet ride. As Ian entered his 60s, Bob imagined any big callout might come from mountain activities, maybe a fall on a “via ferrata” climb. He never imagined learning to fly an ultralight would trigger his biggest job yet.
Would Ian slow down after this?
Bob laughed to himself. He doubted it.
And as Bob’s laugh faded in my mind, the pain felt… different. Not that it lessened—the sensation was the same—but my experience of it had changed. It felt warm, almost comforting.
Bob and his crew were hard at work, and I liked the thought of them down there.
Within minutes, the pain eased back to a low background throb.
Good thing Bob and his crew work around the clock.
