WHEN the surgeon told me it was a minimum of eight weeks before I could even consider riding a motorcycle again I said to myself ‘that’s five weeks then’.

I’ve always had this blind faith and unrealistic expectations about most things in life.

You have to start with a positive mindset or you will never do it.

If you don’t start the very first day with a clear plan and timescale of what to do, you have missed a big opportunity.

When I got back from Germany after the accident I called round and eventually got the phone number from friends within friends of Andy Williams, who I’d been told was the top man and performed similar ligament operations on Premier League footballers.

He answered even though it was a Bank Holiday Monday and I could not have been looked after by better people.

I think the operation took around an hour and a half at the Cromwell Hospital in London.

I already had all my physio equipment sat in the room for when I woke up, because everybody knew as soon as I came round I was ready to start work.

Lying in hospital not moving your leg for two days is not going to do any good and the leg will start stiffening up.

If you want to get back as quickly as I do, you should keep the leg still for no more than two hours.

Get the joint moving as soon as possible because it can move when you are having the operation when you are under anaesthetic.

It’s only afterwards that the body starts to tighten up.

My mum, dad, family and friends have been unbelievable and put their lives on hold just to help me get to where I am now.

On a daily basis they dedicated their time to get me better and without them I would not be talking about racing in Japan next month.

I had my own little physio clinic set up in the house and it was really full on.

Every day I was doing the absolute maximum allowed for the knee to get better.

Firstly I went to Body Limits in Milton Keynes, who did a fantastic job between the operation after the crash in Germany when the back of the knee was stitched up and the surgery in London.

They looked after the knee before the second operation, although there is only so much you can do flushing everything through for a maximum of 45 minutes a day.

After the London operation I went to Harris and Ross, which is a specialist rehabilitation centre in Cheshire.

I lived there for a week and did three hours of rehab every day including two hours in the pool and the rest in the gym.

I just about had time to eat and sleep because we’d set up a mobile clinic in my room to keep the knee mobile.

Every two hours in the night the alarm would wake me so I could ice the knee to have it right for the next day of treatment.

I would be a liar if I told you it was not a painful time.

Sitting on the treatment table being battered from your quadriceps to your calf was hard, but we could see an improvement every day, which was all I needed to keep on going.

I came to Motorland Aragon last weekend to see the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha team and pack my flight cases for Japan.

I’m midway through the time between the operation and the Japanese Grand Prix in just over two weeks’ time.

If I can continue to make the same progress I should arrive in Motegi in fantastic shape.

Nobody expected me to be back so quickly, but also nobody said ‘Brad, you are not going to be able to do it’.

Nobody actually looked me in the eye and said we don’t think this is possible.

Everybody understands how much I want to be back riding the M1 Yamaha and nobody told me they didn’t think they were capable of helping me get there.

There’s still plenty of work to do before we board that plane for Japan, but we will make it.

It’s a massive thank you to everybody for their efforts and also their faith in me.