adam849’s AchillesBlog

I had a lot of difficulty getting in here tonight. I’m pretty sure it’s my fault, if fault is to be blamed. I’ve noticed a proclivity to forgetfulness.
A lack of confidence in you know, those small things, like ummm Memory. It’s really been upsetting. I expect that’s from the pain meds I’m taking. Hopefully this will not last too much longer but this kind of shit scares me. Couldn’t remember the name of one of my cats the other day. Couldn’t remember passwords that have never been a problem or me. Couldn’t… can’t… couldn’t… can’t!!! Wow, what gives. So, how’d the surgery go? You tell me! I’d like to say it went great but there is SO much more to how well a surgery goes. My surgeon was definitely up to speed. He’s good at what he does.

I’m not driving yet. I suppose I could but you know, I just don’t want to push it. Is that crazy of me? i don’t think so. I’d like to think I can do anything I set my mind to. Like I have no impediments despite the surgery. But here’s the “rub”. I’m not on my game. Things feel harder to do than ever before. What that all about? My surgery is was not a big deal. Maybe I’m under qualifying it. Just told my wife I feel like I wasted the night because I couldn’t get any of this writing in. Had trouble with the website. Did I say that already? Very frustrating with password problems. Ridiculous really. Oh but woe is me. This is not meant to be a poor me rant. It’s supposed to be pro through to date. Here’s the facts. It hurts. Shit, of course it does. What’s the deal. It’s been a week since surgery and it’s getting more painful every day. It’s not the most horrible thing I’ve ever felt. Not even close. It’s something I’m completely aware of and that part that hurts should be hurting, dammit. What a surprise: The back of my ankle hurts. Of course it does. There’s an incision back there. He cut into my tendon there. He found all that scar tissue back there and in there between strands of tendon. From what he tells me, he did a pretty thorough job back there. So, it’s gonna hurt. And it does. So I haven’t picked up driving yet. It’s my left leg, my non driving leg, Shouldn’t be any problem. I just really don’t feel like taking that little task on.

So the purpose of this little post is to come clean about a couple of things. Rough draft, I suppose, is as far as this will go but I’m burning and I suppose when you burn, you’ve got to put the fire out. So… #1… here it is… (well?).. (what’s holding me back?)… Oh, and did I tell you that my heel hurts like crazy? What’s that all about? Maybe it’s some kind of referred pain. But it hurts like a son of a bitch.

OK, OK, here goes. lots and lots of heartburn. Chewing on a lot of Tums. I really don’t understand that and I hate heartburn. I take medication for heartburn. Have had it since I was 19. I’m 60 now. So, a long time. So when it shows up like this, i get concerned. And by the way, heartburn really hurts! Damn.

I’m limping more than I had. Guess I won’t be putting on my running shoes real soon. So, as you can see, there isn’t much blogging about. except for the catharsis it promises me. I’m glad about that

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Hello everyone. My name is Adam Lewis. I live in West L.A. And I’m 60 years old. A pretty young 60 but 60 nevertheless. I believe in the catharsis of writing so this seems to be the place to do just that.

I have an idea how I got here but couldn’t swear to it in a court of law  I’ve spent most of my life working out my legs  being one of those geeky kids in the 60s who was the last picked on any sport team, I found that I excelled in long distance running. What a thrill it was to easily pass the “jocks” who made fun of me over the years,  and fly way ahead of them. I couldn’t catch a ball to save my life but boy could I run.

so over the years I ran cross country, track, discovered the utter joys of long distance bicycle touring and when I moved back to LA in 1989, someone turned me on to “the stairs” in Santa Monica. Anyone know them?  168 wooden steps straight up and down and it’s filled with wannabe stars and starlets (and then there’s the major players that are there too.)

I worked out there like a demon. 20 round trips was my normal workout   Sometimes I did double that. This was between 1994 and 2000. After 2000, I did the stairs in my condo building’sstairwell. Healthier about excess, I’d do 10 flights there and never really had much trouble. Knees started hurting as I got older and that’s it.

So, here’s what happened

this past January, I awoke and stepped out of bed to a slight pain in my heel  in two steps it’d resolv itself but t if I sat down during the course of the day, it would return  I’d walk it off and poof, gone  I started think it was Plantar Fascitis but gave up that lame theory as I never felt pain under my foot.

By March, I was limping all day and had not been to a doctor. Finally got there in June. All he said was that we had to get the swelling down. So before the cast went on, I got an MRI. It showed an interstitial tear

the cast went on for a month. Lost 50% of muscle volume in my left leg when the cast came off and inside of 5 minutes ALL the pain came roaring back. Found a new podiatrist and he put me in a cam boot. That was July. Still wearing it in December.

PT yielded me nothing so new dr podiatrist says I have to hav surgery. I wholeheartedly agreed. Of course, knowing that it’s in 36 hours has me not so wholehearted about it.

he says the tendon is torn, it has tendinitis, scar tissue has formed, as has calcium and collagen and it all has to be scraped off before significant healing begins. The literature the doc sends to his patients has me non weight bearing for 8 weeks. Recovery initially is supposed to be painful. I have Percocet ready to go along with an anti inflammatory. Lots of movies recorded on my DVR. A few books are planned. Honestly, I really don’t know how I’ll get through even the first day. This kind of laying around is counter intuitive to the way I live. Always on the go.

So I have decided to use this forum to record thoughts, events, (psychosis), that I go through in the hope that someone else may not think they’re alone in this. Surgery is Friday morning 12/4/15. I’ll probably be writing again Friday afternoon.

Until then…

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