My Story- Same tune, different song

Reading the stories of other has helped me so much through the initial injury, diagnosis, and now surgery. Thanks to all those who participate.

My backstory: I’m a recent veterinary school graduate and had just moved about three hours away from my family (and most all my friends) for my first job. It was great living here over the end of the summer, as it is a beach town and is pretty packed up until Labor Day.  Since then, it had gotten a little boring.  But there were some great bright spots that came with having less people around.  I could fish, bike, kayak and do a bunch of other outdoor activities with ease.  Only issue was that these were all individual pursuits and I felt like I needed to get back into some sort of team sport/activity. It turned out my hospital sponsored a flag football team that played in a league in the local college town. And after some coaxing from my boss I decided to join.

My injury 11-11-12: 2nd half of the last game of the season before playoffs. I didn’t initially appreciate how serious flag football could be for some people, but over the weeks it sank in. Anyways, I was on defense waiting for the snap so I could rush the quarterback. Their center snapped the ball to the QB, then I (and everyone on the field and sidelines) heard my snap.  It was such a hollow, rubbery sound.  My first thought was that I had been hit in the back of the leg with a ball throw from the sidelines and I remember looking around for it as I fell to the ground…  Nothing and no one else within 15 yards.  That’s when I felt the back of my calf and came to my own medical conclusion… Ruptured Achilles’ Tendon.

ER Visit: My visit was honestly a mixed bag. I was seen immediately by an intake nurse and then by a PA before being transferred to inpatient care for an MRI. I didn’t have to wait long. It seemed like as soon as I had changed into the hospital gown, I was off to the radiology department.  It was about a 30 minute scan and when I was being rolled back to my room I asked the tech what she saw on the scan. She told me she wasn’t allowed to interpret them but that there was definitely a ’suspicious gap’ where my tendon should have been.  I got back to my room and then the waiting started. The on-call surgeon was in a trauma surgery and I was behind one other consult. It was about 1.5 hours before the surgeon’s PA was able to come see me. He told me the surgeon might not make it in to see me, and in the 5 minutes he was examining my leg he got two pages for incoming traumas and the hospital went onto a lockdown code because one of the traumas was a gang related gunshot wound. Luckily for me it was a pretty cut and dry diagnosis. Complete rupture.  I was put in a cast splint and given an appointment in two days with the foot and ankle specialist.

I had been offered pain meds all day, and declined them the whole time. I guess I have a pretty high tolerance for pain and was riding high on adrenaline.  But by the time I left the hospital with my pain med prescription in hand, I was in a pretty high amount of pain.