After spending a week stuck in South America dealing with a bad blood infection, Alexander Volkanovski has some good news for his fans. The Australian featherweight was on his way back from Brazil following an impressive win over Jose Aldo at UFC 237 in enemy territory when his foot started to swell up. By the time he was set to make a connecting flight in Chile something was clearly wrong and he wound up in the hospital instead.
Now “The Great” is reporting via Instagram that his ordeal is nearly over.
“We got good news this morning that the infection’s starting to go down now,” Volkanovski said in a video clip. “That’s good because it was pretty nasty before, the infection was pretty bad, cellulitis, bacterial infection. That was my ankle, foot, and leg, it was just very, very swollen and the inflammation was pretty bad, the infection was pretty bad too. But we were worried about it being in the tendons. We got the message this morning that it’s not in any of the tendons, so that’s very, very good so it will be all smooth sailing from now, I think.”
”I’m still getting fevers here and there, but that’s just normal,” he continued. “The worst is done, which is good but I still need to stay a couple of days which is unfortunate, I want to go home and see the family, I’ve been away so long. I was expecting to be back a few days ago but obviously this thing has to be sorted. The hospital’s been unreal here in Chile, they’re looking after me, they’ve got physio, aggressively going after the inflammation, trying to get my feet going. They’ve even got nutritionists looking after me but I haven’t really worried about that, I’ve been enjoying the food a little too much. But I got a wedding to go to and a Best Man’s suit to fit into so I’m gonna clean things up before then.”
It’s a good thing Volkanovski cancelled his travel and infection didn’t go untreated for the 20 or so hours it takes to get from Chile to Australia. As he mentioned, there were concerns even with the quick hospitalization that permanent damage could have been done to his foot and lower leg, which could have been absolutely disastrous for his career.
Cellulitis can turn into a full blown flesh eating MRSA if not treated, so that’s a dodge. Imagine giving the performance of your career and beating a legend like Aldo only to end up with a peg leg and a bunch of unrealized dreams? I suppose peg legs are out of style but you get the idea.
Now that he no longer has to worry about that, he can concentrate on figuring out what’s next in the cage. Just days after his win, the UFC announced Max Holloway would fight Frankie Edgar for the featherweight title, despite the Aldo win being Volkanovski’s 7th UFC victory in a row. With Alex busy dealing with the foot thing it was up to his coaches to voice their outrage on his behalf. Will Volkanovski try to wait his turn, stay ready in case of an injury, or get right back in the cage?
What do you want to see, Maniacs?