ems72’s AchillesBlog

I got the letter with the date of the operation on the mornng of my wedding - cool present eh?

It’s booked for the 14th October, which is further away than I thought it would be.  I was panicking about getting around today - there is no lift at the hotel where we’re getting married, and I hadn’t thought about how I would get down the aisle on crutches and carrying a bouquet of flowers!  In the end though it all worked out beautifully.

A friend of mine picked up my dress from the shop, and my crutches from me in the morning and then took them back to her house.  She covered the crutches in ribbons and bows to make them pretty for me :)  Then the photographer (who’s another friend) picked me up from the house, drove me to get the flowers, dress, crutches etc and got me to the hotel.  He was such a star - he delivered me to the bridal suite and then ran around like an idiot making sure that everything was sorted until my Mum arrived.

I had hair and makeup done at the hotel, but then when I was putting on the super suck-you-in-all-over underwear I realised that I could stand without pain on my foot.  Because of this, I actually walked down the aisle in bare feet, sat throughout the ceremony, and then put the boot on after signing the register!  In hindsight this might seem a bit dangerous, but I think I decided that I was having the op anyway so I might as well risk it.  I even stood for some of the photos so there are no crutches in sight, although my toddler did try to run away with the boot half way through the ceremony which was quite funny

There was only one very slight downside of having such a fantastic day - I obviously overdid the wandering around with the crutches at the reception, because by the end of the evening I had massive pain in the hollow my shoulder at the front and on the blade at the back.  Later in the week a doctor diagnosed this as a pulled muscle, apparently caused by swinging too far forward onto the crutches so that my arms were behind me and taking all my weight.  Oh well - a few more days sat on my bum doing nothing then!

Had my MRI scan - it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  The nurse who took me into the room and put me on the trolley to be wheeled into the machine, was really rough.  I wear glasses and am completely blind without them (no exaggeration) - I explained this to her but she was quite impatient when I couldn’t really see where I was supposed to be going.

Then they put like a cage around my feet to keep them still.  After wearing the boot for nearly four weeks I now wasn’t really capable of putting my foot in a 90 degree position, but she yanked it into place (almost making me leap off the table in pain) and then pulled it this way and that while she stuffed padding around it to keep it in place.  If my achilles had started to heal in any way it would have been completely wrecked.

The process itself wasn’t that bad.  It’s very, very loud and at some points the whole machine vibrates.  I had earphones on with Radio 2 being piped through, but to be honest I couldn’t really hear it over the noise of the MRI.  Hopefully this will tell the consultant whether he can just reattach the ends of the tendon, or whether he’ll need to transplant the tendon that runs down towards my big toe.  I’m hoping at this point for the former option!