Breaking_Bad22: My Achilles Blog

For nearly thirty years, I have played some-kind, some-sort, and in someway shape or form, a sport.  Baseball to Basketball, to Swimming to Volleyball, to Track and Field to Football.  I have played all the above competitively at some point in my life, but above all, Basketball was my passion.  Through all the competition, all the rolled ankles, bumps and bruises, I have made it this far in my athletic life, with just that, bumps and bruises.

Recently, I joined an 18 and over men’s league, where although doubtful of my skills and overall basketball “shape”, I still was able to handle myself.  I may not have been the best player on the court, but I definitely proved to myself, that I still had it.  I knew that, just like anything, with more time on the court, my game, bit by bit would come back to me.  The league went eight weeks, and I felt my game improve week to week.  I was sore every night afterwards, having tendinitis in both my Achilles heels in addition to the typical 30 year old knee and ankle pain, but overall I felt good.

Two weeks after the league ended, one of the guys I had played with invited me to his buddies open gym.  It was five on five, from 11pm till almost one in the morning, pretty much, non-stop ball.  Competitive to say the least, these “boys” were pretty good, and they just kept running.  Although, I had the next oldest guy by nine years, I was playing the best ball I have played in years. Both sides of the court; passing was on; jumper was on, and I felt GREAT!  I couldn’t wait to get out there again, and thankfully that opportunity came just a week later.  Mostly the same faces, with a couple more players, but we had five on five with a couple dudes having next games.  We played maybe five games to 16, straight up, and again I felt great.  My legs were under me, my skills were on display, and I felt again, after some years away, back in my element, in a gym with a ball and a basket.

Before the last game of the night, I was sitting on the sideline, stretching out and getting some water, ironically joking with the other old guy ( 9 years younger than me) about still being able to play with these “boys.”  The game began and soon enough we were winning 12-10.  A fast break opportunity arrived after a turnover and off we went.  The ball came to me and driving down the left side of the court I went up for a layup, when all of a sudden I was “kicked in the heel”.  I never completed the layup, falling to the ground before even getting up in the air.  I was down on all fours; scouring in pain, and in that moment, I knew something wasn’t right.  I felt something I have never felt before, a “kick in the heel”, almost like I was shot from behind directly in my Achilles.  I was able to get up, with the help of some comrades, and for the remainder of the game, I gingerly hobbled the sidelines, hoping to walk it off, thinking maybe it was just a bad ankle sprain.

Talking to one of my boys, I tried to rise on the balls of my feet, trying to stretch it out, and I just simply couldn’t, describing to him that “something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t feel myself trying to stand on my toes.  I waited a couple more minutes before leaving, and somehow, painfully, none the less, drove home, cringing with every pump of the gas and brake pedals.

I came in the house limping painfully, and crawled up the stairs to the bedroom where my wife was almost asleep.  She, being the nurse she is, took my sneaker off, and elevated my foot and immediately applied ice.  She felt around my ankle area and my Achilles, where I told her I was kicked while going up for a layup. Compared to the left leg (the non-injured one), my wife described the right one on the Achilles heel, as if “something was missing.” Already feeling it, and then hearing that awful phrase, I knew something was not normal.  I proceeded by taking some Advil and somehow managed to fall asleep.  Whatever was going on, maybe could be slept away, and I’ll figure it out in the morning.

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