What is Polar Thigh: What led to everything going wrong with the leg? So I had a condition called polar thigh, mostly on my left and a thigh. And that is it’s fairly common amongst more women than men actually doing really long—polar expeditions. And there’s a lot of or the walls, rather doctors kind of a bit unsure about what causes it and why.

And they’re really, the best explanation we have for now is it’s kind of like a severe child. And obviously, staying in the call makes it progressively worse and asked the skin is trying to heal. So be sorry, I jumped a step. Miss a step. What happens is you have these ulcers on your leg. They’re tiny, to begin with, and then they basically start to grow.

So you’re like, Oh, that doesn’t look that great. I’ll cover that up. And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And the reason they kind of keep growing, if you like, is they have what doctors call the reperfusion element. So as the blood flow is going back to the air to [00:01:00] try and heal, it actually causes more inflammation, more, he gets damaged, and it keeps growing.

So there are pictures of my injury. On the, on my Instagram account, and they’re pretty horrible. And you can see how it’s. So we started off being really small, and I only had one little sheet of granny flats, which is a kind of dressing we use on big expeditions where you can just quite fit.

It’s like a slab of dressing, or you peel it off, whack it on, and that’s not going to go anywhere until you kind of finish gets home. You’ve got a long shower. And I was running out of that. So I like looks a bit like a patchwork quilt near the end. But everything came undone. I had a really, really benign for, in a white type fell over nothing.

All Youtube Videos –

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdOUNOtEqivfeQbX0Y0JkuQ?sub_confirmation=1

And as I landed, I heard and felt all the ulcers crack open, basically split open into one big. Leg wound. And it was; it was absolutely horrific. I’ve never heard a noise [00:02:00] like it, and I lay there. You were looking up nothing. It was a white eye and just crying. I mean, it was the most fun of physical pain I’ve ever been in.

And then, at that point, I think I had about a hundred, 150 miles to go, something like that. And it was like, wow. I, I’m still going. And by that point, I went from skiing really well. I mean, everything was going so well. As I said, I was ahead of the world, place, the world record pace, and suddenly I’m skiing and dragging a leg behind me.

Sorry. I do think I explained at the beginning, I’ve got a huge sledge behind me with my tent or my food supply, so everything I could need. So that’s not like, and I’m suddenly dragging this leg on it. It, it just became so, so difficult. Even things like putting the tent up and dine, which in high winds is a fast, speedy job.

You’ve got to be on it. And there’s lots of, kind of Europe. You’re dying. You’re putting snow here and building snow walls there and trying and doing that with my leg open. Like that was. Awful. [00:03:00] But yeah, there was, I was never, ever stopping that never, ever entered my mind.