The finer details of Thomas Castaignède's fight to return from a double rupture of the achilles tendon are not for the squeamish. "Last September I noticed a really bad smell in the plaster on my ankle," says the French international. "You could pull bits of my achilles out with tweezers. The doctors took all the rotten stuff out, and they left an enormous hole, big enough to put your fingers in. I could see my anklebone. I thought I would never walk again."
One of his Saracens team-mates sitting alongside complains that Castaignède is putting him off his lunch. It does indeed make the jam and peanut butter sandwiches they serve at Sarries' Bramley Road training ground perform a backflip in your belly, but the point is worth making.
This was less than a year ago. Since then the glamour boy of French rugby, with his bleach-blond hair and extravagant gestures on the pitch, has faced the abyss: possible permanent disability and the end of his career. "I thought I would always limp. Rugby is important, but this was about other things, like being able to play in the garden with my children."
Castaignède played a full 80 minutes in a friendly last weekend against the Japanese club Suntory - "an emotional occasion, an end, and a new beginning" - and tomorrow, when Saracens visit Bristol, he will start his first serious game since he originally injured the tendon in November 2000 while warming up before France's international against Australia.
Recovery is usually a relatively routine process. In Castaignède's case the complications set in because the doctors did not notice that the tendon had ruptured in two places. One rupture was repaired, the other left untouched, so for the next nine months he attempted to return to training in spite of the pain, and damaged the tendon further as he did so.
By the time the second rupture was diagnosed in August 2001, it had spread to 80% of the tendon. This is too great for the body to repair naturally, so the graft had to be taken from his hamstring. The graft failed to take, hence the hole in his ankle, but even when it had begun to heal, there was another twist.
"It refused to close. There was a point when the doctor said, 'we must close the wound, but there is a chance that there is still some infection'. It was possible that the whole thing would happen again."
Now, the back of Castaignède's left ankle has a shiny, unnatural look. "I'm like the Bionic man, rebuilt from nothing," he jokes. The scar on his calf is what draws the eye, however: a broad, livid streak eight inches long. That's nothing to do with his achilles tendon, though: it is a rope burn from an exercise during Saracens' pre-season training at the army camp in Aldershot.
"We had to climb 10 times up a five-metre rope, sometimes I would get to three metres and find my arms empty, and I would just fall." Like the rest of the men in black, Castaignède has never trained so hard as he has this summer, fired up by their new coach Wayne Shelford. "The pain was terrible, my achilles was like a piece of wood, but it was so good because I knew I was getting fit again. I was happy to suffer."
Shelford's pre-season programme was a mere bagatelle compared to the darker moments over the past 22 months. "I remember after the third operation, I asked the doctor to come and put me to sleep with some drugs. I said, 'you have my life in your hands, this has to stop'. The best moments were when they drugged me, because there was no pain. I lived with it every minute of every day."
Castaignède, so jaunty on the pitch in the blue shirt of France, admits that at times he despaired. "I never gave up hope, but at times I was in an impasse and thought I would never come back. I was ashamed of limping all the time, of having to be helped. I have a lot of amour-propre . Sometimes I would crack, and say 'I'm going mad, it's not possible what is happening to me'."
He could not walk, let alone run, spent five months in hospital, was unable to shower because he might have got the skin graft wet. "It was like being a handicapped person for 14 months, but then I realised that I had no right to complain, because there are players who break their backs and worse, whereas what I had was not insurmountable."
Castaignède did not lack moral support. As he limped on and off planes between his club in London, his family in Toulouse and the La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, he would be encouraged by fellow passengers. Messages came from the then French prime minister Lionel Jospin and the president Jacques Chirac. The Saracens owner Nigel Wray would call. "He would say things like, I saw Ronaldo, and it will be like that for you." His team-mate Tim Horan gave him advice on taking his recovery step by step.
Robert Pires of Arsenal, now going through a similar process of rehabilitation after a cruciate ligament injury, visited Castaignède in the Paris hospital. There he was treated by Doctor Gérard Saillant, the man who was thanked by Ronaldo for getting him fit to play in the World Cup, and who has also had Michael Schumacher, Alain Delon and Gérard Depardieu under his scalpel.
Now, most of the time, Castaignède is full of the joys of autumn, rediscovering his body and his rugby. "When I run, I feel nothing, I'm complete. It's an unimaginable joy. Coming back from hell, I've learned to put things in perspective. You worry about a bad game, but at least you can run around. I love rugby, and all I want to do is win a title with Saracens, and get back in the équipe de France ."
But two hours after we talk, he is heading out of Bramley Road in a hurry, direction Barnet hospital. He banged his knee three days earlier in Japan, has felt it move during training, and wants a scan as quickly as possible. His face is grim, his voice worried: "Every time there's a small problem, I can see myself going back to the dark days."
Another two hours later, he returns, smiling again: there is no damage to the cruciate ligaments, merely bruising which should not jeopardise his game tomorrow. The hard work, deepest doubts and nights of agony may be behind him, but his next few months will be nervous ones.
Castaignède's catalogue of woe
November 4, 2000
The nightmare begins. Castaignède ruptures his achilles tendon while warming up for France v Australia Test at the Stade de France.
November 6
Initial operation at hospital of La Pitié-Salpêtrière to repair tendon.
August 8, 2001
Second rupture discovered with 80% damage to tendon. Second operation using graft taken from hamstring.
September 15
Another operation following rejection of tendon graft, and infection.
December 12
Operation No4, this time to close the wound, which has remained open, and slightly infected.
December 31
Castaignède walks normally for first time in 13 months, and has a shower for the first time in five months.
January 2002
Begins rehabilitation work on his upper body, followed by running in a swimming pool, to avoid working the tendon too hard.
January 31
His wages are stopped by Saracens who are in dispute with the French rugby federation; the club call on French rugby players' union to resolve the issue.
April 5
He begins light training again with Saracens.
April 27
He plays again, as a substitute against Northampton.
May 11
Tears a muscle in his thigh while playing for Barbarians v Angleterre.
August 25
First full match, a friendly v Suntory in Japan.
