Hi,
I ruptured my right Achilles 16 days ago dancing in a lesson. So my next few entries will be retrospective for a while.
It was a very cold evening and I walked to the class for 10 minutes. There were about 17 people in the studio and everyone was looking forward to the the first class for their first performance opportunity as part of a professional production at a Victorian theatre. Dancing is my pastime, and I was supposed to be one of volunteer dancers required for the play scheduled for March.
It was around 6 pm and the temperature was below zero outside. I changed my clothes and did some warm-up (about 10 minutes) with other students in the studio. We then jumped gently about 10 cm high and I heard that infamous sound in my right Achilles. I landed on the other foot and sat down on the floor. The teacher standing a few metres away ran toward me and I asked her to call an ambulance for me. She said she also heard the ‘pop’. I then asked my classmates to carry me out of the studio so that they could continue the lesson. The staff brought me a blanket and a pillow and stayed with me. I was sitting on the fancy glass floor in the corridor and it was very cold, but I didn’t notice it was deriving my body temperature.
Paramedics arrived in 15 minutes or so. They suggested me to inhale laughing gas before transport to reduce pains which could be caused by bumpy old streets. I inhaled it for a while and then felt nausea. I couldn’t keep my head up and couldn’t hold my tears. I was sad about my poor condition. One of the paramedics told me it was the gas’s side effect and would disappear soon.
When I arrived A&E, I saw my husband standing by the entrance and felt relieved. While waiting for my turn to see a doctor, my husband tried to cheer me up. Forty minutes later, a doctor came to my bed and told me to stand on my left foot with my right knee on a stool. He touched my right calf on the stool and pronounced that my AT was rupture and that it would take 12 weeks to heal. He then ordered a technician to put an under knee half plaster cast (with a ballerina toe) on my foot/leg.
The doctor told my husband to make an appointment for me with the Orthopedic Outpatient Unit in 1 weeks time. The doctor then asked me if I had any questions and I asked if they would perform surgery on my ATR. He answered that the surgery would involve some problems, such as infection and other complications, and they normally wouldn’t go for it with ATR. I had heard lots about MRSA problems at hospitals and didn’t want to have an operation there. So the given treatment was fine by me, but I felt something chilly in my spine when the doctor went on to tell me as follows:
"Don’t worry! If your AT doesn’t heal, we will connect it by surgery later."
I screamed in my mind - "No, that’s the last thing I want to hear!!"
I’ve lived in the UK long enough to learn how to deal with various sorts of hassles in every day life, such as writing complaint letters to British Gas, Royal Mail, and airline companies to get basic/proper services and phoning up a tradesman to get a job done in time. My English is far from native speakers’, but I can enjoy a little chat with people talking in a local dialect while standing in a long queue! However, when it comes to the NHS services, I still don’t know much about them. So I felt desperate for further information about my treatment protocol, but the doctor didn’t have more time for me.
By the time I was told to go home by the technician who put the half cast, I was feeling nausea and couldn’t think anything in order. On my way home from A&E, I vomited many times and used up all my energy. On top of that, I had to walk up stairs with crutches to the 3rd floor (in USA 4th floor!) to reach my bed. This was the moment that I realised what would be waiting for me in my future - no easy access to outside 
Oh, well… What’s been done is done. Let’s look at the bright side! I tried to talk to myself but couldn’t see any light then.
More stories later!
Dennis - Thank you very much again for creating my blog account!
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