A 29-year-old primary school teacher who plays in a weekend amateur basketball league has not played for seven weeks. She has spent the last five games at the scorer’s table keeping the book, walks rather than jogs across the playground on duty, and has quietly dropped the two short runs a week she has done for years. By the end of a school day she is limping, and she has started taking the lift up to her classroom. Her team captain told her to stop waiting for it to go away, because the end-of-season tournament is in three weeks. She looks fit and well, walks in with a barely noticeable limp, and apologises for taking up an appointment.