My ATR journey

The days following my surgery have been trying.  The pain has never been terrible, except for the first night after the surgery when my nerve block wore off.  I woke up from the pain being so bad, but after another pain pill and a little time I was feeling alright and the pain had subsided enough for me to fall back asleep.  Chris worked very hard from the time I got home as well, setting his alarm for every time I needed to take any pills.  3 prescriptions, and each had a different schedule.  I was very impressed with him, waking himself up in the middle of the night to wake me up to take my medicine on time so I wouldn’t be woken up by pain again.  What a sweetie!

Anywho, after the first day or two I was feeling pretty good.  The anti-nausea medicine wasn’t really needed, but they told me to take it anyway because it will make me super sleepy… and it did.  However, I only had to take it 2 days, and by Thursday, 2 days after the surgery, I was up and about and got out of the house.  My mom came the previous day and did my laundry and made me dinner and helped get me food, etc.  Mostly provided me with much needed family support.  Even though I love living 3 hours away from home most of the time, it doesn’t mean I don’t miss my fam!  So Thursday she brought me over to the bookstore so I could order my cap and gown for graduation and look at class rings.  Now that I was injured and out for the rest of the track season I would be able to walk at commencement, whereas before I would have had to compete at the MVC conference meet.  Actually, I use the term “walk” loosely… since it’ll probably be more of a limp.  No complaints though, i’ll be happy with anything better than crutching!

I returned to classes Friday since I was feeling much better and didn’t want to miss anymore class than I had to.   My mom also left this day.

Now the absolute worst thing about crutches is getting to class.  I live off-campus: just close enough to have a nice walk or bike ride to class sans-crutches, but just far enough to be a terrible hike on crutches.  I got a ride to campus on Monday, but decided to try and make the trek home after my last class.  I made it back alright, but barely.  I cried and felt sorry for myself all evening, wondering how I would get through the next 5 weeks.  A phone call from my dad made me feel a bit better, and ever since then I’ve been doing a little better everyday.  I still am getting help getting to and from class from Chris and my roommates, and my arms are getting used to getting myself around in between classes and such.  Just taking it a day at a time has been the key thing for me; the second I started thinking about the number of weeks or days I had left made me start feeling sorry for myself again.

I know I only tore my Achilles and it’s nothing permanent and nothing that can’t be fixed, but it’s just such a shock and such a change in daily routine that it’s overwhelming sometimes.  I never thought I’d take walking for granted, let alone early morning track practice.   But now that my glass has shifted from half-empty to half-full, I’m just looking forward to graduation and the start of my PT :o)

Also, I get my stiches out tomorrow!  Hoping to get out of this stupid splint/cast for good and get a boot!