So, if anyone read my experience with the PA at my doctors office at my 6 week check-up, you could most likely pick up on my disappointment of how slow they are dragging me through rehab. Well, the latest installment is…..nobody knows when I should take a wedge out of the boot! At my 6 week check up, I asked the PA when I take the first wedge out. The PA was already upset/surprised that I was FWB when I came into see him, and then he told me that he couldn’t tell me when to take a wedge out, that it was PT’s job to tell me when to do that….wtf. So at my first PT appointment after that 6 week check up, I ask my therapist when to take the first wedge out, and they say it’s not in the protocol, and the doc should have told me when. Soooo, I decided about a week ago to take a wedge out of my boot, and much to my surprise there was only two wedges, if you want to call the heel piece an actual "wedge". I was under the impression and so was the doctor that there was 3 wedges in the boot. Frustrating. Anybody else have any experience with just the two pieces that I have pictured here? They were basically glued together, and I pulled out the bigger, bottom wedge first, and now just basically have the heel/wedge piece in my boot.  Feels really good though, I’m contemplating trying to walk around in shoes in my house over the next week or so.

Went to my 6 week post-op yesterday, was greeted by a look of wtf, when the PA came into my room and looked around for my crutches and didn’t see any. He then asked where they were, and I told him that I was moving along a little ahead of the schedule given to me by the doctor. He asked how long I’d been
FWB, and I told him I started FWB about 2 weeks ago. He seemed shocked, then almost stand-offish about me talking to him about the protocol I was following. Then told me that they don’t always approve people to walk FWB in the boot at 6 weeks, but he was going to approve me since I was having no issues with it. I then asked him about the wedges in the boot, and he said that physical therapy would decide when I remove them, and when I asked physical therapy, they said it was based on the doctors protocol. So once again, glad that everyone in this office is so clear on what the “protocol” is. Then the PA told me that my protocol is on the aggressive side of things in the Achilles recovery world. Kind of made me laugh a little. He then scheduled me another appointment for 4-21-14, and told me to bring shoes to that appointment. If I ride with his protocol, I’ll be in shoes by the 11 week post-op mark. Glad that his physical therapy starts stepping it up a little, or I would quit attending, and take physical therapy into my own hands, and avoid the 20.00 co pay I get hit with every time.

So, as I talked about earlier my Doc had me slated for being in the boot NWB until March 16th, after having surgery on Feb 4th. After looking around and talking to some of the other ATR victims on here, I decided to speed up my recovery. On 2-23, I started some PWB, and was still using crutches for the most part. After feeling more comfortable with the process, I ditched the crutches on 3-1, and am getting around without any crutches. Only bad part to this whole scenario is that my physical therapist refuses to budge of the original protocol that the doctor sent over, so I’m basically doing more aggressive stretching and exercises on my own. Today marked my 3rd week of seeing the physical therapist, and now I will start going twice a week. I’m using bands at home for resistance for some of the ROM exercises, and then not using any at therapy. Frustrating, but I’m happy to be crutch less at the moment, and other then the soreness on the sides of my calves from putting weight on the leg. My therapist did say that next week I will begin with some more "aggressive" PT, and told me that I would be a little more interested with what we are scheduled to do. Frustrating. From what I’ve seen from several studies, staying in a boot for as long as I was going to be asked to do so seems very dated. Oh well. Here’s a pic of my incision at the one month after surgery mark.