bobfv’s AchillesBlog

I had tickets to yesterday’s baseball game, Washington Nationals vs LA Dodgers, and I just had to go. The Washington Nationals are my adopted team, and the LA Dodgers are the team that I grew up with in Los Angeles so this was a must see. Since my injury I have attended two games, both when I was PWB in the boot with crutches, and I switched out my seats for ADA “handicapped” seats and everything worked out okay. Yesterday I decided to use my regular seats, which are all the way down right on the field in the 3B corner, meaning I have a loooong set of concrete stairs to go down and up to get to the seats. To top it off, yesterday was a heat warning day in Washington DC - high heat and extreme humidity with heat index values in the 100’s. If you have never been to the Washington DC area in the dog days of summer, the place is absolutely miserable. It is built in a swamp and it just swelters, and yesterday was predicted to be the hottest day of the year so far.

So with that background, I decided that it just was not practical to wear my walking boot - it would get uncomfortable, be difficult on the stairs, and also be difficult in terms of people stepping over me to get in and out of the row. I wanted to sit in my seats, not in the ADA section. Since I am at 8.5 weeks post-op and doing well in PT I decided to give it a go in two shoes.

I bought a special pair of shoes just for this purpose. My background is military and law enforcement and I am kind of a nut for tactical gear. A company out in California called 5.11 Tactical makes great equipment and gives me a veterans discount, so I chose them in selecting a protective boot to wean in to out of my Aircast boot. After looking through their selection I decided that I wanted the following qualities in my boot:

- 8 inch height for ankle protection
- lightweight and breathable
- stiff shank to prevent excessive dorsi-flexion
- ability to accommodate a 10mm heel wedge
- comfortable enough fit around my scar
- side zip for easy on and off

I selected the ATAC Sage 8 Inch CST Boot because it had all of those qualities in addition to a composite safety toe (CST) to protect my foot if someone stepped on me. The boots are very comfortable and I took them to my OS appointment and my surgeon really liked them and thought they would be a fine boot to transition into as I moved to two shoes, providing lots of ankle protection and support.

So I am still not driving, my friend picked me up and off we drove to Nationals Park in Washington DC, just south of the US Capitol. We had a parking space right next to the park and I had no problem whatsoever walking in my new boots! I walked a little bit slowly just out of caution, and I was very careful to avoid situations like curbs which would potentially put me into excessive dorsiflexion, but I did just fine. Once inside the concourse I walked all the way to the far side to get to my favorite sandwich stand, over to my seats, down the stairs - no problems at all. Sitting in the seats I was very glad I didn’t have the Aircast boot on as people stepped over me to get to their seats.

After the game I came home and iced my ankle but I really did not have any pain or swelling - I was very pleased as I had worried about both of those issues but neither materialized.

I consider the whole outing a great success, except for the fact that my adopted hometown team lost to my boyhood hometown team I hope this info is useful for anyone transitioning to two shoes. I am going to stay in the Aircast boot for most day to day activity for a couple of more weeks, as my OS had ordered, but it is nice to know I have this option and I am going to use the boots as I start driving again next week.

I had my 8 week post-op appointment with the surgeon today. The good news, everything looks fine. The bad news - OS wants me to continue conservatively over the next 3-4 weeks, wearing the boot most of the time, continuing with strengthening, and walking in two shoes with a heel lift at home. He also did not clear me to drive, which is a disappointment but one that I can work around (I have a very expensive, luxury paperweight form Germany in my garage!). He said that in a year I will not even remember if I was in the boot 2 months or 3 months, but just to be on the safe side to keep wearing the boot with one lift, and to wear my shoes with a lift when I do PT and around the house. It doesn’t really bother me - I have good ROM, I am getting my strength back, and I would rather not risk future problems, so I will stick with the status quo for now.

In physical therapy I am progressing to leg strengthening exercises now that I am healed and have a relatively normal range of motion, so I will continue to work hard to strengthen it up.

Here is a photo taken this morning - my 8 week post-op anniversary photo:

I am in the middle of my 7th week post-op and I have progressed in my PT protocol to a new set of exercises designed to get me back in two shoes and regaining my strength and balance. The protocol now includes:

• Normalize gait
• Progress calf strengthening
• Seated heel raise>>>standing heel raise>>>single leg heel raise
• NMES prn  (neuromuscular electrical stimulation as needed)
• Gradually progress dorsiflexion past neutral in stretching and strengthening
• Progress to equal ROM bilaterally
• Eccentric plantarflexion strengthening

I am enjoying these new exercises, for the most part, and continuing to do many of the exercises I learned in the past four weeks of PT.  I have stopped wearing the boot to bed at night and I take very short walks without the boot in the house, very carefully.  In PT I use my street shoes with a heel lift.  I am still doing seated heel raises and have not started the stimulation yet.  My range of motion is very good - I practically have the same ROM in both ankles, but I am not about to push it on dorsiflexion.  I am doing plantarflextion on the Total Gym in shoes which is kind of scary, because I have the balls of my feet on the machine and my heels off of it - the idea is to press down with my toes, but I am scared of slipping and going in to a big, unintended dorsiflexion.  I am also enjoying working on single leg balance - I alternate lifting one foot off the ground and standing on one leg for ten seconds at a time.

I have an appointment with the OS this coming Wednesday, and I am hoping to get his blessing to lose the boot and to start driving.  That will be exactly 8 weeks post-op.  Other than that I feel great, no pain whatsoever.  I bought a pair tactical boots which are lightweight and have a side-zipper entry and I plan to wear these in the first weeks out of my Aircast boot to provide extra support and protection. I have worn them around the house and they don’t seem to put any pressure on my scar, which has healed almost completely.