An Ironman’s recovery from an Achilles Tendon Rupture

I was supposed to get my 3^rd cast removed tomorrow but I kind of took matters into my own hands yesterday.

I was in Lake Placid on Sunday to watch the Ironman race and take pictures for a magazine; the only problem was that it rained all day. My cast got soaked. It seemed to dry out but I was skeptical. Then I took a shower on Monday night and a ton of water got in there too. I woke up on Tuesday and my leg still felt wet and soggy. I later smelled something rancid. Yup, it was coming from my cast. It sorta smelled like a dumpster behind a restaurant. I immediately called the hospital fracture clinic and was lucky to get an appointment that afternoon.

Once I got back to the cast tech, he cut it off and revealed all of the wonderful nastiness that lay underneath, along with the full aroma of the wet, dead skin. Everyone on duty came by to have a look at the monstrosity and take a whiff. I was thinking, let us scrape the dead skin off and send me on my way. The cast tech was adamantly against that and said I could pull all the skin off and leave nothing underneath.  Instead, he gave me some paper towels to dab it, then put a plaster splint one top (like the first cast) and wrapped it with cotton and gauze. He told me to take a blow dryer to it to dry out the area.

At home, the smell was still bothering me and I could feel that the area was still moist and was only going to stay that way until Thursday. I did not want things to get worse (infection, rotting, etc.) so I pulled the cast off, peeled off all of the dead skin, and carefully washed my foot. The foot was tender and looked extremely wrinkled, but it was now dry and should return to normal in a few days. This was not going to happen with it all wrapped up.

One day later, the foot has improved a ton. A lot of the wrinkling is gone and some swelling has gone down. When I go out, I put on the walking cast for protection but I let it go free when I move around the house. I even test it out every now and then and put some weight on it. I am not ready to put a ton of weight on it yet. At least not until I see the surgeon tomorrow. Won’t he be surprised when I crutch in there without a cast? Another post will follow after that appointment.

Thanks for reading.

See all the pics below.

Cast is cut off.

The grunge is revealed. 

Remains of the plaster cast I removed.

More looks at the nasty foot.

Nasty look #2. 

Nasty look #3.

Nasty look #4.

Washed foot.

My leg the next day (today). The indentations above the 3 incisions are from the walking cast.

Another look at the cleaned up lower leg.

Walking cast.