Ray Bartholomew Player Column - Round 10

A WEST Perth premiership player will be writing a column for the club's website every week of the 2014 WAFL season. This week's edition is Ray Bartholomew's latest offering.

I THOUGHT I would take this opportunity to run through the cheekbone injury I suffered in our win over Peel a few weeks back, explain why I only had two possessions for the game, run through what has happened since and talk about when I'll be back playing.

What I remember about the incident is that I went down to pick up the ball that the Peel bloke had handballed and when I was down there I got spun around and then I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I copped an accidental knee to the side of my head from Kristin Thornton. It was his knee by accident and it was actually my teammate Steven Browne who pushed me into it. A few days later, I told Browney that because of him I need to go and have surgery now. I was only mucking around but he knew he had probably caused it when he told me that during the game.

After it happened, I was on the ground feeling my face and something didn’t feel right. I initially thought I had broken my jaw just because I had heard a crack but then the physio came running out and asked if I was all right, and I told him that I didn’t think so. I asked him if there was a dint in the side of my head and he said there was a little one so I should go off and see the doctor. The doctor said that he thought I had a compressed cheekbone fracture. He basically said that he wouldn’t recommend that I play on because if I got another hit there it could cause further damage, but I just said that I was playing on anyway.

It only happened 10 minutes into the game so I was a bit annoyed because it only just happened and I didn’t want to basically miss a whole game of footy. At that stage, the game had only just started and I wanted to be out there and part of it. Bill got me on the headset and said that it was totally up to me if I played on or not. He said that he cared about my welfare and left the decision up to me. I told him I was right to play on but he said that at any time I want to stop, I can. But I just said I will keep playing and told him to put me somewhere different. He said that I would go deep forward and my role was just to make sure I didn’t get hit and just run up and down basically so I could help with the forward rotations.

I knew that I wasn’t going to get into the contest after that and my whole focus was that if I can't impact on the game then the only way I can help my team is to just be a rotation for the forwards and give them a rest for three or four minutes at a time. I did that for the rest of the game. Bill mentioned that I ended up playing 50 minutes so that helped give some of the forwards a rest. I remember saying to Paul Sanzone at half-time because I was in a bit of pain and had taken some Panadeine Forte halfway through the second quarter because it started to aching, and I just said that if the boys aren’t a chance at three quarter-time I'll call the quits. But the boys got a bit of a roll on and I stuck through and kept doing what I could.

Then once the boys got the win, I had a quick shower and was off to hospital. Even that turned out to be interesting. On the Sunday night after the game, I went to Joondalup Hospital and got a CT scan straightaway and they said that I should be right to go into Charlie Gairdiner Hospital to have the surgery done. So I went in there on the Tuesday and but it turned out they didn’t have me booked to come in. Obviously Joondalup hadn’t called Charlie's and they said they had no record of me coming in. I then ended up seeing the specialist there and told him that I was hoping to have the surgery, but the surgeon said that he wouldn’t operate today because there is still a little bit of swelling. He said he would rather operate when the swelling went down because it would be easier for him.

I then went and saw the surgeon on the Wednesday and we ran through the whole process with me of what was going to happen. He mentioned some spots that they were going cut on my face to insert a few plates, but it just happened to be that when I ended up going in on the Friday, I only ended up having two plates inserted – one just underneath the left eye which was 4mm with some screws and then another on the side of my head where the initial contact was which was 6 or 8mm with some screws.

I went in on Friday at 1pm and didn’t end up going in until about 4pm and then woke up at 5.10pm in recovery so it actually happened pretty quick in the end. When I woke up, they said that it was all done and that I was right to go again. Now I just have to let it run its course and come back when it's ready to go.

It is feeling all right now. With the surgery they went in through my left upper gum so I didn’t have any cuts or stitches on the outside of my face so that was lucky. The only part aside from the cheekbone that is a bit of a problem still is on my left upper gum because that's still healing from where they did the surgery. It is healing quickly but I can still feel where they actually made the incision.

I have now started training again and the surgeon will get the final call on when I'm ready to play again. I am catching up with him again on Thursday morning and I'm hoping that he will give me the all clear to play. If I am right to go, then hopefully I will play on Saturday against Claremont at the Showgrounds, but more than likely I will certainly play against East Fremantle the following week.

Once the surgery was done, the surgeon had a chat to me and was happy with how it went and basically just told me that for the next week I had to try not to sneeze, lift anything heavy or exert myself. So for that next week I didn’t do anything but as a result of that, I feel a lot fresher from having that break. I then returned to training this week and got back into it with the boys. There's really no excuse as to why I can't do anything now because it's just my cheekbone and gum, so I can still run, do my weights and kick the footy. 

BY RAY BARTHOLOMEW