Another Bump in the Road
Hello All -
I am new to group of ruptured achillies tendons….an injury I have never even thought of before. As a basketball player my whole life, I have had a ton of sprained ankles, to the point where they are now like spaghetti. So to have ruptured my AT comes as a complete and frustrating surprise to me. It happened on December 4th 2010 in Brooklyn, NY. I had organized a reunion pick-up basketball game with my high school teammates of 26 years ago. We were always close and I was looking forward to seeing the guys and reliving some of our memories of yesteryear. During the course of the first game, I made a move to my left towards the basket and heard the loudest pop I ever heard. As I am 6′4 and 250lbs, I dropped like a bag of rocks. I immediately asked everyone if they heard that and I actually looked behind to see if someone knocked me over. I knew it wasn’t my ankle as that is a distinct sound and pain. I even looked at my sneaker to see if it just fell apart (I was hoping so). I had hardly any pain…which all the guys found positive as I was able to stand and walk. The only problem was when I walked on it, it felt like I was sinking into the floor. My HS coach put some ice on it on for awile, but I knew I had to get to an ER. As I live 35 miles away, I actually drove home on this foot, even more increasing my delusion that it just might be a pulled calf muscle. It wasn’t to be. When I got to the ER, a nurse practitioner looked at it and was sure it was ruptured but she couldnt believe my lack of pain and full range of motion. Again, this increased my hope for something simple. The surgeon came in and burst that bubble rather quickly and said I needed surgery the next morning. After the surgery, the Dr told my wife that I obliterated the tendon and that he thought he would not be able to fully repair it but he did. As I waited for the feeling to come back to my legs after the spinal given to me, I started to really think about the long road ahead. You see I titled this blog “Another Bump in the Road” for the past five years has been challenging to say the least.
In March of 2005 I received a call that my mother had her aorta torn during a routine stent insertion giving her 3 hours to live. Her odds were not good as the the Dr was concerned she would bleed to death on the operating table since she was on blood thinners. After many prayers, she came through her emergency open heart surgery and the medical staff said there is no medical reason why she survived. I knew it was the Grace of God that got her through. Two days into her recovery my colon had unexpectedly ruptured and I was facing emergency colon surgery as perotinitis was setting in. I was scared to death as I had a wife and 2 small children who needed me. I came through the surgery Ok but was very sick and was hospitalized for 9 days. I was fitted with a colostomy bag for 2 months and the recovery was extremely tough. As I recovered fully, think of the feeling of having to go through this surgery and recovery all over again as they had to reattach my colon.
Two months later I developed a major incisonal hernia that had to be repaired…yep another surgery. Are we having fun yet?
In January of 2006, my wife had to have esophageal surgery for a condition called achalasia that she has.
This was a very intense surgery and again scared out of my mind. She came through Ok though still has problems to date. The next ditty of health surprises happened of December of last year. As I am an asthmatic I had trouble breathing and went to the ER. An xray was taken and I was sent home with asthma medicine. Three days later I went back and by this time I had pneumonia in both lungs. The ER doctor misdiagnosed me the first time as the orginal xray showed pneumonia in both lungs. As I was coughing up blood, I was completely unsure of my prognosis. How bad was it? Were the Doctors not telling me everything?
The next day I was told I would be OK and stayed in the hospital for 6 days….great, right around Christmas time. If you’ve ever had pneumonia, you know how hard that recovery is.
Because I let myself get out of shape the last few years, I decided it was time to get healthy. Being in the hospital was like paying your taxes….painful, but necessary.
I joined a gym and ran like Forrest Gump for the next year, to the point I was running 35-40 miles a week. I lost 40 lbs from my all-time high weight and was taken off BP meds. My doctor was thrilled with my progress. I was just in good enough shape to play basketball again!! BAD MOVE.
As we were all good players, we were all looking forward to getting together in our middle aged state. My parents and my wife were concerned about my ankle….if only.
As I go through the recovery and look back on what I have gone through over the last five years, I do get down at times. Not only have my wife and I been through a lot, my whole family has. My father has been battling lymphoma for the past 9 years and has been kicking its ass. When I do get down, my attitude quickly changes when I realize not only have we all come through it, but it happened to me and not my children. That is something I can live with.
Now…on with the recovery.
December 24th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Yah, on with the recovery, Brutus. You obviously deserve a break, but unfortunately, this is a pretty slow grind, even if your Doc is “with it” enough to put you on a fast modern effective protocol like the well-tested one at bit.ly/UWOProtocol . If not, see if you can educate yourself, and then him, to its benefits. Your ankle, your spirit, and your family will all thank you.
Unfortunately, the fact that he told you that you “needed surgery the next morning” does not inspire confidence, at least in me. Surgery is an important choice for an ATR patient, not something you should be Shanghai’d into. Describing himself as a miracle worker after the surgery may be something he’s also “dined out on” all his life, but I don’t buy it, given the solid scientific (and ample anecdotal) evidence to the contrary.
Several studies have shown surgery-equivalent results from non-surgical immobilization of RANDOM COMPLETE ruptures, presumably including a bunch that your guy would have described in heroic terms if he’d seen them under the scalpel. It’s a miracle, but it’s documented in randomized published studies.
Whatever, what’s done is done, and most surgical ATR-repair patients end up with a very satisfactory end result, so you should, too. (And he and the hospital with the spare OR “going to waste” are probably happier now, too.)
Sorry if I sound frustrated, but I am. It’s not your fault, obviously, so don’t take it as a criticism of what you did. Virtually none of us new squat about ATRs until we got one.
Do check out the various protocols (or at least the one), and see if you can pin him down to give you a blueprint of your whole recovery. If he tells you that he has to use judgment and observation of your individual case at every step along the way, I’d ask him to show you the records of how well his past patients have turned out — strength, Range of Motion, Re-rupture rates, Leppilahti scores, etc.
If he has them, it’s a wonder, and if they’re nearly as good as the ones published at bit.ly/UWOStudyPub , it’s a miracle, because those results are Very Good (both with and without surgery). IMHO, there’s no excuse for moving back toward normal life any more slowly than that.
Your earlier surgical ordeals, personal and familial, may well have prepared you mentally for the road ahead. As the site often says, it really is a kind of marathon. But it’s also often made much longer than it should be, so try to avoid that. Being “conservative” in the rehab is often done in the name of safety and “You don’t want to start over again”, but all the evidence suggests that it is either neutral or negative in preventing that awful outcome.
Good luck, and good healing!
December 26th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Thanks Norm. I appreciate the comments. Unfortunateley, like you said, we know nothing about ATR’s until it happens to us and we are kind of at the mercy of our doctors. I am curious to know if my Doc maybe just to conservative in the treatment.
All the best.