MY journey to the Kokoda began under the knife at Epworth Hospital just days before Christmas, where Kyabram-based surgeon Benny Zhang laid open what still, to me, looks like half my leg, to pull out the old knee and replace it with a new one.
This gave me barely six months to get in shape and get up and down the Owen Stanley Ranges – from Owers Corner to Kokoda – starting on July 6.
Which, with the step-off so close, is, I am pretty sure, a shape nowhere near good enough.
So if this is the only story you read about my attempt to walk in the footsteps of heroes, you can safely assume I did not make it, was choppered to the nearest available hospital and then discreetly repatriated to Australia with terminal embarrassment, slipping quietly back into northern Victoria hoping no-one noticed I was gone for a few days.
What I have discovered about new knees is everyone seems to respond differently to the surgery, and subsequent recovery.
But I am pretty sure we all start in the same place as soon as we wake up from the anaesthetic; it really hurts and they give you lots of drugs to try and alter that state of mind (and body).
Turns out, I may have been blessed with the best knee surgeon in the world. Having spoken with many people, of various ages, abilities and genders, I figured it was going to take two or three months to get even close to where I started.
Whether, however, my surgeon was blessed with the best patient and potential Kokoda trekker in the world is a different matter altogether.
Within hours of waking up in the Epworth, my knee was bending to almost 90 degrees, and when I was discharged 24 hours later, was going past 90.
Despite my objections, as I headed for the lift, the friendly Epworth staff loaded me up with enough opioids to launch a medium sized drug trade; in the end I needed a bag to fit them all.
However, I reverted to ice (aka frozen water) – the best solution – and Panadol a few days later, not least because my wife was refusing to sleep in the same end of the house, let alone the same bed again, until I did.
Because, and she swears this is true and has told enough people, she was terrorised in the middle of one night with me thrashing at the bedclothes screaming for help to get rid of the big spiders.
Apparently, the dogs bolted, yelping down the passage, and she had to duck several wild swings to reach the safety of the ensuite before sneaking back and semi-smothering me with a pillow until I calmed down and promptly went straight back to sleep.
She spent the rest of the night convincing the dogs to come back into the house and then sitting, propped up by pillows, reading a book and keeping a very close eye on me if I so much as stirred.
I still have no recollection of any of that, but I confess I had been having some seriously weird dreams while taking the painkillers.
So five days after getting home the pills were gone, more ice was brought in and we all got to sleep through the night (although if, as a rising septuagenarian, I do need to get up in the middle of the night for a loo break, she still snaps awake and watches every step I take).
Fortunately I was religious with my rehab, which was soon extended by my physio Pat Arnold, and the knee started getting better at a rapid rate.
The crutches were gone in 10 days and a month post-surgery I was on my way to 15,000-20,000 steps a day (albeit in the very not hilly Murray River plains), with the severe warning from Benny, the hospital physio and Pat that whenever you feel your recovery is going well, you really need to slow down, lost in the rush to get fit for the Kokoda.
Turns out the super surgeon and the two physios knew more about knee replacement recovery than me.
And thus began a series of total rest periods, with minor stretching, punctuated with mad rushes to clock up more kilometres.
A stupid standoff which has dragged on for months.
Now, with just weeks, even days, to go, I have been stopped for another week because once again, this time after a combined stretch of bushwalking, stair climbing, road walking and the gym – where the daily step average was running north of 30,000 – the knee is inflamed, sore and stiff.
A result in which my specialist team seems to be taking way too much delight – with a very big dollop of “we told you so” on top.
Benny Zhang has assured me while knee surgery at Kyabram Hospital and the Epworth is routine for him, it is far from that for his patients – particularly the impatient.
He has walked/talked me through the surgery, and let’s be honest here, with drills, saws and hammers it not only looks frightening, but it also helps explain why you need a spinal block and general anaesthetic and why recovery is no overnight fix.
From showing you the bad bits on the initial MRI, to the 3D model of your knee put in your hand to show you where it is all going wrong, this was an amazingly seamless operation.
Even when the surgery was done, Benny’s artistry did not stop, he closed the massive slash down my leg and did such a spectacular bit of needlework you have to squint your eyes in a well-lit room to see any scar.
And speaking of that slash, all the knees I had checked previously had cuts straight through the middle of the kneecap.
Mine doesn’t.
It goes down the lefthand side of my leg, with Benny explaining the way the majority of nerves go across the knee, from inside to outside, going down the middle cuts them in half – making the long-term potential of happily kneeling in the garden, or kneeling anywhere, that much more problematical (not to mention painful).
And he was right again.
I can kneel on my new knee, but others I have consulted with the centre cut still can’t some years afterwards.
Surgeons are a strange breed. They love to cut, love to see the job work and then move on.
Benny, however, has been extremely patient with this patient, and followed my quasi recovery with benign amusement and frequent suggestions to do things his way, not mine.
But we are still talking, regardless.
And he says he looks forward to seeing me when I get back from PNG and what he can do to resurrect my new knee. He even has high hopes I might wreck the other one at the same time and we can do it all over again.
So with all that in mind, having served my latest sentence of rest, I was back at Vic Park pounding up and down the stairs there for an hour.
And that was all I could take – the knee hurt again.
Memories of a double circuit at the 1000 Steps in Melbourne, or repeated ascents and descents of Mt Ida outside Heathcote were a throbbing thing of the past.
The Kokoda is the daunting thing of tomorrow.
