ANDY ONYEAMA-CHRISTIE has described the “otherworldly” pain of suffering a fractured and dislocated ankle.
The Saracens star, 25, has been sidelined since sustaining a horrific injury during a match with Harlequins on October 13.
Onyeama-Christie immediately knew that he’d suffered a bad injury following a tackle by opposition hooker Jack Walker.
But when Quins second row Stephen Lewies inadvertently kicked the Scotland international’s already fractured ankle, his pain went to another level.
“That’s where I had the worst pain imaginable,” the flanker told The Telegraph. “I’ve turned to grab my leg like that and I have seen my foot facing the wrong way.
“Every day of your life for 26 years, you see your feet every single day point the exact same way. There are certain things in life that are just a given, that you take for granted.
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“Then you have that kind of shock of being like, ‘Wait, what?’ Everything I’ve ever known is changed and I looked down, it’s pointing off to the left. That’s when I kind of panicked.”
On the extent of the pain, Onyeama-Christie added: “Genuinely, if you said to me, ‘I’ll break your arm every day the next 100 days’, or you do that one more time, I’ll take the arm, no question. I have played hurt, but it’s just pain. Pain I can cope with. That was otherworldly.”
After receiving painkillers on the pitch, Onyeama-Christie was taken on a 30-minute drive from Twickenham Stoop to Paddington Hospital, where he would tune in to the rest of the game while waiting for a hospital bed.
His long road to recovery was just beginning.
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During the next nine hours, surgeons twice had to realign the Scotland star’s foot.
Onyeama-Christie was visited that day by Maro Itoje, despite the England skipper having his 30th birthday party that evening.
He was also helped by his model girlfriend Tash Soodeen, with the couple having only been together for four months at that point.
The following weeks were a blur for Onyeama-Christie, who has admitted that all he did in that period was “sleep, eat and take meds”.
“Honestly I’d wake up and I was in so much pain,” he explained. “Pain that makes you want to scream the minute I woke up – so I just had all the painkillers I could. That would knock me out for three months. That was my life.”
After being told that he would be sidelined by a minimum of six months, Onyeama-Christie targeted a quicker return.
His cast came off on November 4, and amazingly he began to tentatively run again in late January.
Another setback was to follow, however, as the Saracens star required bone graft surgery following discomfort.
A fairytale comeback date then began to emerge, with Sarries rematching Harlequins at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on March 22 – his 26th birthday.
Having returned to training on February 27, Onyeama-Christie played 20 minutes of a friendly against Edinburgh last week.
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While there are no guarantees that he will perform to his lofty standards off the bench at Tottenham tomorrow, just being back out there will be a huge step for Onyeama-Christie.
On his comeback being against Quins on his birthday, the now-recovered star admitted: “There’s a certain poetry, I can’t deny.”
