Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
At about week 6-7, I was able to start driving. My foot was strong enough to brake and definitely push the gas. I lifted my knee a little bit off of the seat to make it higher so I could prevent any scary motion and the possibility of re-tearing my achilles. It was totally working- I would take off the boot to drive and then put it back on when I got to my destination. I showed homes in the boot and life was seeming to be getting back to normal.
My doctor cleared me to start transitioning into shoes at week 8. I was leaving for Las Vegas the next week so he suggested I wear the boot on the trip. Although the boot was cumbersome, I was happy to wear it in such a new environment. I drove home from Vegas to So Cal so I was feeling pretty alive, considering my friends were just getting out of their cast at week 8.
My PT continued 3 times a week. I was getting stronger but definitely not ready to do heel raises or anything like that. I was working out with Neno and feeling good. Walking in shoes was still really tight. My doctor and PT never mentioned ordering a heel lift so I just tried to wear sturdy shoes.
By the time I was home from Vegas (week 9-10), I was completely in my shoes. I had misplaced my boot several times so I thought that was a pretty good sign that I had weaned myself from the boot.
At this point, I was having some issues with my scar apparently adhering to the tendon. It was indented pretty significantly where the incision point was so my PT started having me really work on it. I rubbed Melaleuca’s Painatrate and ScarZone on it and kind of “roughed it up”. Within a week, it was better and started to have a more normal contour. It still felt really tight and was hard to walk in normal shoes. My heel was very bruised and hurt pretty badly to walk on it. I started icing more aggressively and it seemed to help quite a bit.
About the PRP- the doctor felt it was too soon to really judge how the PRP was helping. All in all, I was progressing pretty quickly and I was much farther along than my friends who had the surgery years before.
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Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
So physical therapy became a big part of my week. I would go 3 times a week and by week 6, I was full weight bearing and at 0 degrees PF. That was such a huge relief to ditch the crutches. Tina taught me how to wean myself from the crutches by using just one crutch on the opposite side of my affected foot. Then eventually, I started not using crutches around the house and eventually made it outdoors without them. All the while, my achilles was pretty tight and while I always said it didn’t hurt, I realize now it really did. I was always aware of how tight it was and that made me nervous.
By now in PT, I was standing on the ground stretching, doing mobility exercises, sitting stretches, and trying to strengthen my feet and calf. My achilles was completely non-responsive if I asked it to do a heel lift so that was discouraging. I was still going 3 times a week. I started feeling a lot of discomfort in my knees and hips from walking so unevenly with my elevated heel and boot. I asked my physical therapist about how I could work out the rest of my body. She introduced me to Neno, a personal trainer who works out with her patients who have limited mobility. Neno is awesome! He found ways to work out all my muscle groups without engaging my achilles. I started going to him 2-3 times a week and found that my knee and hip pain went away. I was spending a lot of time at the physical therapy office, that’s for sure!
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Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
After 1 week in a splint and 2 weeks in a cast, I went in for another check-up. I was SO thrilled when he told me I would go directly into a boot. The cast room guy brought out a big, black boot and showed me how he was putting 3 wedges in the boot to keep my toes pointed downward. I was to remove one of the wedges each week until my foot was flat. It seemed a little makeshift but I went home happier than if I had a cast. I was also allowed to start touching my toes down so that was nice.
My foot rattled around in that boot. The back of the boot rubbed against my incision so that was pretty uncomfortable. I was still NWB so the combination of size and weight was a little clumsy. That week I had a couple of mis-steps with my boot. Both had to do with the dog so I had to learn not to react like I normally would. Once, the knee scooter basically flipped me and I had to throw my bad foot down to keep from falling down. I was beginning to hate that scooter!
The big news was that I could start physical therapy! I had a lot of choices when it came to physical therapy as several of my friends are in that field. I decided on my daughter’s former coach who had a Phd in Physical Therapy. Tina ended up being awesome and helped so much. Prior to this, I had never really had any experience with physical therapy so I didn’t know what to expect. Over the next few weeks, I learned that a good physical therapist is a blend of knowledge, compassion, instinct, toughness, touch, and skill. I have such a respect for that profession now! Each time I would leave PT feeling so much better than when I went in. She would use the STEM, ultrasound, massage, and icing to get the swelling down and things moving. In the beginning, she taught me how to properly use the crutches (they were set at the wrong heights and I wasn’t doing stairs correctly), how to properly start putting some weight on the foot, and how to do some exercises at home. I loved my PT appointments and went 3 times a week.
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Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
I couldn’t wait for my doctor’s appt. He saw me in the cast room and he and all of the technicians seemed thrilled with the small incision and how it looked so far. He made the decision to put on a cast for 2 weeks, NWB. So, I walked out with a big ole hot pink cast in honor of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness. At this point, he said I could start using a knee scooter and that he’d have his assistant have the company who provides them call me. That afternoon, the supply company called me and said they’d be by with a knee scooter. That was a huge help but I still had to really elevate my leg so I wasn’t too excited about scooting around. She also sent me the paperwork for a handicap sticker.
The next two weeks went by quickly. I really didn’t try to do too much other than I really didn’t want to miss the high school football games. My parents took me the first week and then friends and my mom took me the weeks after that. Watching my daughter’s high school volleyball games were hard on my psyche. It was difficult for me to get up the stands where I used to sit with all of my friends. I would often watch from the other side of the gym, which was quite lonely. I’m a pretty social person so this separation was pretty much killing me. Each week, I would make it up a little farther and be a little closer to the crowd but it was scary to do. I should have just sucked it up and crawled up the bleachers but I guess I was too cautious. I learned those 3 weeks how absolutely handicapy-unfriendly bleachers and stands really are. It was horrible!
At home, I was able to get around better. I had crutches at the top of the stairs and crutches at the bottom of the stairs. I would crawl up the stairs on all fours and shimmy down, giving my triceps a good workout. My knee scooter turned out to be a little flimsy. I was disappointed that it could tip so easily so I had to take everything really slowly. For showers, I would use trash bags, duct tape, and towels to protect the cast. Later, I found the cast shower protectors and was sad I didn’t use them from the beginning. (More on that later.) It took me twice as long to get ready. With Southern California temps extremely high during the month of October, I would end up getting so hot and sweaty from just the act of getting ready that I basically should have started all over. I finally learned to get ready before 9am, when it was still cool outside.
Fortunately, the majority of my business during this time was listings (not too many buyers) so I could do the majority of the work from home. It was working so I was thankful. I did miss the interaction of being out and about and was really missing not driving by that point. Looking back, I realize I could have been out doing more but I was probably in my own little pity party.
My parents, husband, teenagers, and friends were invaluable during this time. They were all so good to me and made sure I had rides wherever I needed to go.
At this point, I hadn’t found this Achilles Blog and was thinking that I would be non weight bearing for 8 weeks. I had kind of shut down socially and except for the sweet friends who came to visit me, I was pretty much keeping to myself- not a healthy thing for me to do! I need people and wish I would have been more adventurous.
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Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
6 days after the “incident” on the tennis courts, I checked in to my doctor’s office to brief before the surgery. He showed me the video of the technique he’d be using, PARS. It was fascinating, although I didn’t even realize there were different ways of doing this surgery. He explained that I’d have a small 2 cm incision and a few pin point size “holes” in each side of my foot and calf. I really wasn’t ever concerned about the incision but I dd like the idea of a lower risk of infection and adhesions.
While I was in his office (still totally consumed with healing better and faster so I could drive), I asked him about PRP, platelet rich plasma. I knew he’d be up on it as he had just finished up a second foot and ankle residency in North Carolina where he was under the team physician for the Carolina Panthers. He told me that they typically only use the PRP with professional athletes as cost is generally not an issue. I still had him find the cost for me as I was set on doing anything to get back to driving so I could get back to selling homes. His assistant came back and said it would be $2,000. I declined and remarked that if it was for my kids, I probably would have sprung for it. I was a little disappointed but figured I would still do everything I could to get back to work and driving my kids anyway.
From there, they wheeled me over to the hospital where I was checked in. It was noon by this point and my surgery was set for 2:30. They took me to a “holding room” where my doctor met me and kind of hung out with me while we waited for an operating room to open up. While we were there, the PRP rep just happened to be there at the same time. My doctor explained my situation and the PRP rep agreed to provide the PRP for no charge, just as a step in building a relationship with my doctor. Woohoo! I was so happy and excited about them using this new technology on me.
My doctor is the son of a well known Southern California orthopedic doctor. I found out that he would be in the operating room observing the PRP and PARS technique. I was even more happy to be getting 2 docs for the price of one!
Apparently the surgery took a little longer than normal, I’m guessing because of the PRP. I was the last patient out of the recovery room. When we were driving home, I looked down to see an IV still in my hand! It was too late to turn around to go home so I called a friend, who is an RN, and she met me to take it out. She also threw a couple of cans of soup in the car when she found out I was going home and we weren’t sure what we were doing for dinner. We picked up the pain meds and headed home.
The anesthesia and pain meds were making me so nauseous. I was SO thankful for those 2 cans of soup my friend gave me. It was the best thing ever for my sensitive stomach. I tried taking the pain meds but they made me so dizzy.
I set up a bed on the couch that night and had a huge foam “propper upper” to keep my foot elevated. My foot had a splint that was wrapped, and I wasn’t about to unwrap anything to look at it.
The next few days were uneventful. I kept my foot propped up and tried to work on my laptop and phone as much as possible. The pain killers made me loopy so I ditched those the second day and switched to Tylenol. I was a good little patient!
So, off to the hospital I went from there. I checked in at noon
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Posted on January 18th, 2016 by hollymt5
I really wish I would have started this long ago, before my rerupture. I’ve gained so much from reading other people’s experiences, good and bad. Unfortunately, it’s been almost 4 months since my first complete rupture of my right achilles tendon and 6 weeks since I reruptured it. So, much of this will be recollection but I think it’s good for others to know what I’ve learned.
On September 29th, 2015 (my 45th birthday) I reluctantly joined a group of friends for a tennis clinic led by a dear friend who had also ruptured her achilles about 3 years ago. I say reluctantly because I knew it was not a level I should be playing at but I went anyway. About 15 minutes into the drill, I went up for an overhead and landed, pushing off to get to the net quickly. As soon as I pushed off, I thought someone must have also gone for the same overhead and ran into me. I fell to the ground and looked behind me to see who was there… no one. I called out to the rest of the group that I ruptured my achilles. They all said they thought it was a calf strain since I was able to move my toes so I got up and walked clumsily off the court. I called my husband and he picked me up at the back gate and took me straight to the orthopedist doctor. My doctor, who was a young doctor, immediately diagnosed me with a complete rupture. He sent me for an MRI and pre-op appointment that day. I never considered non-op because I was so dead set on getting better quickly and couldn’t imagine it happening without surgery. The MRI found that I had a 2 cm gap so surgery was scheduled for 6 days later on October 5th.
It was my right foot so the realization that I wouldn’t be driving for 3 months set in and terrified me. I’m a busy full-time realtor, mom to 3 active teenagers, and a wife. This completely freaked me out. I have 3 friends who had been through this before so they confirmed that yes, it did suck! When they went through this just a couple years before, they were non weight bearing for 8 weeks in a cast. They didn’t drive for 3-4 months. I tried to keep things in perspective but to me, my whole life just had to be put on hold while my achilles healed.
I hadn’t been injured in 30 years so crutches were foreign to me. I was already out of shape so I could just imagine rupturing my other achilles while hopping around on one foot. This was going to be a long 3 months!
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