Hood’s AchillesBlog

Well, 7 weeks since surgery #2. It has been a completely different experience this time around. Getting the walking boot after 4 weeks instead of not at all has been great. (And my current surgeon usually does it at 2 weeks, for first-time rupture-ers.) PT starting at 4 weeks has been awesome, not only for the calf-strengthening, but just so I can bounce little thoughts/concerns off the therapist 2-3 times a week. My surgeon is totally fine with me emailing him questions as well, and often responds the same day. I couldn’t ask for a better experience to be honest.

Therapy has now added green and blue therabands for resistance to plantar-flexion and inversion/eversion. I still am not dorsi-flexing at all. I’m also doing bridges, where basically I lie on my back with my legs bent and the balls of both feet on the floor. I then raise my body up on the weight of the balls of my feet, trying to put as much weight on the right (op) side as possible. Basically supine pelvic thrusts. It’s pretty sexy. 3 sets of 15. Then seated calf-raises with weight belts around my right thigh, 3 sets of 20. Otherwise still getting ultrasounds every time, manual massage (no more Graston thank God), biofeedback, and ice at the end. My therapist is killing me but I love her for it. I will post a picture of my legs this week - I think I have really gained some mass on the right side.

At this point in my recovery after my initial surgery, I was in two-shoes, and supposed to start rehab. I can’t imagine going to two-shoes right now, and I can’t imagine not having 3 weeks of rehab under my belt already. I am only in the boot for 9 more days, and when it comes off I’ll be happy, don’t get me wrong, but very nervous. I am starting to feel a little stretch on the tendon just with the full heel-lift in the boot. Hopefully that’s just my calf getting stronger with the rehab, and not something more ominous. A lot fewer weird twinges and pulls than last week, which I think is mainly a tighter boot and being more careful.

At this point, I can honestly say I’m glad that I reruptured right away. Of course, not re-rupturing would have been the ideal, but I think that eventually I would have blown it again. I base this thinking on the pain I was having in the weeks leading up to the re-rupture (and maybe micro-breakdown of the tendon?), the low “explosiveness” of the activity that caused the re-rupture, and the fact that my new surgeon said he didn’t find any of the long-stay sutures in the tendon that my original surgeon said he used. This is of course speculative as hell, and I say this with a decent amount of disdain for the earlier guy, but I’m going to continue to convince myself that that’s the truth.

That’s it for now. Sorry these are so long. I just want to say a little then vomit a ton of stuff that most people don’t care about - it’s good to get it out. I want to say thanks for the first and not last time to Dennis, for maintaining this site. Also, to everyone out there in the AB community: the emails I get when people respond to these posts with words of hope and encouragement do so much to brighten my day and push me along the path to recovery. You guys are awesome.