Achilles Tendon Rupture Recovery

Today is my 1 year Anniversary since my ATR surgery, and I can’t believe it’s already been a full year. I agree with Tom that this has been a long journey, and I am happy to say that I made it through okay.
It’s nice to see the Marathon Tracker showing that I’ve finished the race, and it says: “dennis has completed the grueling 26.2 ATR miles to full recovery”

But I know that there’s more recovery left. I’ve spoken to others who are a year ahead of me and they say that your Achilles will continue to get better.  My Achilles doesn’t feel 100% recovered yet, but I play pickup basketball once or twice a week, and my Achilles doesn’t bother me.

I was worried last week about my swollen Achilles near the heel, but the swelling has gone down. I think it was the ankle brace that I was wearing that must have irritated my Achilles. I played this past Sunday without it, and no swelling. I’ll keep a close eye on it tonight when I play again.

So how am I on the court?
I don’t play as much defense as I used to since I make a point of not running backwards any more, when I remember. (I ruptured my Achilles running backwards on defense.) I pretty much play like Glen Rice in the later years of his career. I am now mostly a mid-range jump shooter and play just a little bit of defense. I can’t fault my recovering Achilles for this, since my right knee is the culprit that’s keeping me from running, slashing, and playing defense.

Just to recall how I was feeling a year ago, I went back to read my post about the surgery on the main site: http://achillesblog.com/chronology-of-achilles-rupture-to-recovery/surgery-day/ And the more brief, slightly different post on my own AchillesBlog: http://achillesblog.com/dennis/2008/02/12/day-4-surgery-day-my-anethesiologist-is-a-baller/

The first couple of weeks were filled with anxiety and uncertainty, and I am glad to have lived through it together with others on this site.  It really made a big difference to be able to share my experiences with others.

I am glad that there are now over 300 people who have put their Achilles Profiles up. On average, there is about one person a day joining this community. It’s unfortunate that people are rupturing their Achilles almost daily (probably a lot more than that..), but it’s a good thing that they are finding useful information and finding a very supportive group of people here.

Okay, I need to sleep.. I’ll write more later on this post.

Thanks everyone! Happy healing!