Port Adelaide key forward Charlie Dixon has spoken openly about the difficult road he’s journeyed in these last few months.
Dixon underwent surgery twice after breaking his leg in Round 21 last year against the Eagles and admits he questioned whether he would ever play football again.
“There’s been a lot of low moments,” Dixon told Fox Footy’s AFL Tonight.
“After my second surgery, I went back home to Cairns and there wasn’t much going on. I found myself wondering if I was going to play football again. The negative thoughts start to sink in and you find yourself in a pretty bad place.
“Regardless of who’s around you, it’s hard to fight your way out of that. I was around my mum and my brother, but it was hard to see the good in anything really.”
“I was running and only getting one to two days of actual running in before I would get a shooting pain up my leg where I couldn’t change direction, couldn’t put too much weight through it when running,” he said.
“It’s definitely a question that hangs over the body when I turn 29 this year. There’s always those questions of: ‘Will I be able to get back and play the footy that I used to be able to do?’"
Dixon gave an update on when he’s in line to return.
“At the moment, I’m four to five weeks away — and that’s the only thing on my mind now, to try and get myself back and help my team out and do everything I can to get myself fit and strong again," he said.
"There’s no point in sitting around at home and feeling sorry for yourself when you’ve got a lot of good people around you."