Jody Cundy of Strictly Come Dancing has confessed that he is still in pain after being hospitalised with a leg infection, but has reassured supporters that he is pushing through.
The 44-year-old paralympian returned to Jowita Pryzstal for a full week of training after missing two days in the lead-up to last week’s live event.
He described it as a “week of highs and lows” at the time, and the BBC acknowledged contingencies were in place if he was unable to perform during Movie Week.
Despite being unable to put on his prosthetic limb just days earlier, Jody returned to the dancefloor.
He’s now given followers an update, telling Metro.co.uk that, despite some discomfort, he’s ‘on the way’.
Jody said: ‘The infection has cleared up nicely. Just kind of keeping an eye on it, trying to look after it a lot more than I had been doing and trying to stay on top of everything.
‘It still hurts a little bit but a few painkiller and we’re on the way.
‘It’s nothing more than having a blister on your foot.’
Jowita went on to say that the two are both ‘on top of the problem’ during training, taking regular pauses to disinfect the contaminated region.
Jody previously disclosed his hospital sprint when chatting to Janette Manrara on It Takes Two, as the sporting star explained: ‘The first two days, absolutely flown by, the end of day 2, we’d done the routine a number of times from start to finish, which I had not done for the previous two dances.
‘Really confident that we could just perfect everything for Saturday, I got home on Tuesday night, took my leg off, and was like, “Ooh, that’s quite sore,” and didn’t really think too much of it. Cleaned it, bathed it, made sure it was all ok.
‘Then I got up around 4am, looked at my leg, and it was warm, swollen, and I was like, “That’s getting infected, I need to see somebody about it.”’
Jody was still unable to put his leg on the next morning after being given antibiotics at the hospital, keeping him out of commission for two days and jeopardising Saturday’s performance.
Despite the little practise time, Jody and Jowita managed to achieve 20 points, telling host Claudia Winkleman, ‘It’s been emotional.
‘I had two really good days, I was like, “I’ve nailed this, now I’ll get the spit and polish on it and make it really good for today,” then I spent two days with my feet up.’
‘I’m extremely proud,’ Jowita added.
‘Literally, he had two days, he pulled it off, he said to me, “I wanna dance, I wanna perform that routine because it means so much,” and it means so much to me as well, so I am super proud.’
Jody previously told Metro.co.uk about the encouragement and love he’s got for portraying the disability community on film and being an inspiration.
‘I’ve had quite a few messages from people who have just come into disability,’ he told us.
‘Friends that have lost legs are encouraging these people to watch the show because I’m on there, and people just genuinely excited by the fact that I’m on here and doing what I’m doing.
‘Even last week, the struggles I went through, like wearing a prosthetic and having sores and having to take it off and stuff, just highlights one of the little things that sometimes you have to get around when you’ve got a prosthetic.
‘It’s never a smooth ride and I think just being part of it and showing all of those bits and it all happening live is really useful.
‘I’ve had nice messages from people who are genuinely inspired by what we’re doing on the show, so that’s a really nice thing.’
Strictly Come Dancing continues tonight at 6.30pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
