Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by jenny
Hi everyone, it has been six long months since my last post! My one year ATR anniversary was on June 8th and things are looking pretty good, although portions of my scar are as ugly as @#$#. My pregnancy went really well, except that the extra 42 pounds I put on put a real strain on my recovering tendon. Our beautiful baby girl Kassandra was born 2 1/2 weeks ago on June 4th. Lucky for me I have already lost 30 pounds and my tendon no longer feels so sore. In fact, I think that it is probably stronger because of the extra load it had to carry for 9 months. My focus now will be to get back into shape, since I have had two very quick pregnancies, with the ATR rupture and surgery in between. I have no muscle tone or endurance left at all so I have a lot of work to do. Oh well, with 4 kids at home, there is a lot to keep me busy. I am not playing slo-pitch this year, although I could start this week if I really wanted to. I am very nervous about pushing my tendon since I have not done any running on it yet and certainly not any quick starts and stops, which is what got me into this mess in the first place. Somedays, I still look at that ugly line on the back of my ankle and get ticked off. After a lifetime of good fitness and athleticism, this is what you get. Getting older sucks! Anyway, it is summer and there is ample opportunity to get back in shape now that the weather is good. I am still very tired since the baby is only 2 weeks old but its time to get at it!! Hope everyone is recovering quickly. Enjoy your summer!!
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Posted on December 15th, 2008 by jenny
Hi everyone, it has been quite some time since my last post and things are progressing nicely. I can do two legged toe raises easily and can get my heel about 1/2 inch off the floor in a single toe raise on my bad leg. I have even managed to run across the street several times to avoid being hit by a car. (Sudbury drivers!!) As mentioned in my title, my progress has slowed somewhat as I had to stop acupuncture and electric current therapy only two weeks after starting it as I got pregnant only two weeks after getting off my last cast. Hey, what else is there to do when you are immobile?? LOL. Anyway, I am now 14 weeks along and expecting baby number 4 in early June. (the others are 13, 11, and 15 months, yah, I know there is a big gap in there but I decided to use my education and get a job for a while) I am trying to be very careful about weight gain since I am still very stiff and often feel significant weakness in my right ankle, and don’t want to add too much extra effort. I am in almost all of my old shoes, except for the really cute high heels (sigh), something I missed terribly at the big Christmas party last Saturday night. But otherwise, I am feeling about 80% back to my old self. My next goal is to start running again, but I have not made that effort in the last 4 weeks do to some issues with the pregnancy. Well good luck to all of you in your recoveries and Merry Christmas, Hannukah, or whatever celebration you participate in, and Happy New Year!!
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Posted on October 3rd, 2008 by jenny
Things have been going fairly well the last four weeks at PT. I am walking with a limp but much less than before, and I can extend my knee past my toes while my heel is still flat. The surgeon told me yesterday that was fairly good progress in terms of flexibility considering I was in a cast for 10 of the last 16 weeks, with an additional 2.5 in the boot. I have been having deep tissue massage, ultrasound, electrical stimulation, and acupuncture for the last two weeks and the swelling around my ankle has decreased considerably. However, the last 2 days I have had sharp stabbing pain right in the tendon and starts out while I am carrying the baby. (an extra 28 lbs on the bad foot). I have an adhesion the full length of my tendon which makes the whole ankle really tight, and I am wondering if the pain is because the scar tissue is loosening up and almost ready to “let go”. I have read some posts about people having sudden searing pain they at first thought might be a rerup, only to find that afterwards, everything had loosened up and felt better that ever. So my question is “What the heck is going on?” P.S. The surgeon told me to get lost. It never would have lasted anyway. LOL
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Posted on September 22nd, 2008 by jenny
hello all, I have been fairly upbeat and optimistic over the last 15 weeks and not yet even had a good cry over all of this nonsense. My husband is a “suck it up” kind of guy and isn’t particularly interested in listening to me vent about how frustrated I am. In the past week I have found that my upbeat optimism has almost disappeared and I am now angry, frustrated and sick and tired of all of this. I am having significant discomfort now that I am FWB in 2-shoes, and the swelling around my ankle is just ridiculous. At PT on Friday, my physiotherapist told me I am trying to do too much and to rest for the weekend, no exercises, no housework, nothing. I have a bad limp and am walking very slowly, and hurt myself twice this weekend. The first time I stepped on something sharp on my heel and quickly shifted my weight forward onto the ball of my foot. Big mistake, The pain ripped up the back of my leg but no damage. The second time, my husband left the basement door open and I thought the baby was about to tumble down the stairs so I tried to quickly get to the door. Ouch!! Anyway, I am physically exhausted from PT and exercises and feeling like this is never going to end. Am I expecting too much of myself? I have always been an overachiever and thought that I would be much further along by now. OK, I am done complaining now. Happy healing everyone.
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Posted on September 15th, 2008 by jenny
Hi everyone, things have been going fairly well at PT and I am making slow but steady progress. Immediately following my surgery 13 weeks ago, I had significant loss of sensation down the right side of my right foot all the way to my pinkie toe, and still cant feel anything. I have also had significant pain internally in the middle of my foot which started actually prior to my ATR. Anyway, concerned that maybe my tendon ruptured as a result of an untreated fracture in my foot increasing pressure on it, I decided to go get xrays done last week. (No scanning of any kind was done prior to surgery) The results of my xray show “marked and considerable” osteopenia in the mid, and hindfoot and ankle area, and especially marked at the base of the 5th metatarsal but no fracture was noted. I looked up osteopenia on the internet and learned that this is a significant decrease in bone density. A medical article in the Scandinavian Journal of Sports Medicine (which is unavailable without purchase) suggests in its title that this is common in ATR patients who are immobilized for too long. I was in a cast for 11 weeks. My concern now is how do I increase bone density to reduce my risk of fractures in this foot in the future? Anyone else have post-cast xrays done??
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Posted on September 9th, 2008 by jenny
Went to my PT appointment yesterday and was told to ditch the boot, so I celebrated and bought myself a brand new pair of running shoes on the way home. Boy did it feel weird to have a shoe on that foot. It didn’t hurt, just felt really weird. I wore the shoes all evening and this morning. I am having no problems with rubbing on the incision so far and other than the tendon being really tight, all feels good. (I bought an expensive pair of double layered, frictionless socks from The Running Room shoe store that are supposed to prevent blisters). Did I mention that I drove to my appointment, the shoe store, and then to the grocery store?? YIPPEEEEEEE!!! Two big strides in one day. I finally feel like I am getting my life back.
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Posted on September 5th, 2008 by jenny
I have a right ATR and am 12 weeks post-op today. I have 3 kids, and a million appointments a week (3 just for PT and then all the kids activities) My dad has been driving across the city almost everyday and been taking me to all of my appointments but I feel really bad. PT says that driving is not an issue but the possibility of emergency braking and possible microtears to my recovering tendon. (she doesn’t think it would rerup at this point). Anyway, I am sick and tired of being grounded and want to sneak out of the house with my car FREEDOM!! At what time did any of you start driving, any suggestions??
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Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by jenny
Well, after deciding to stay home and tend to my brand new PT, my husband and kids convinced me to go on vacation for a week. It was fun but exhausting. After driving 3.5 hours from Sudbury to Toronto, we took the four hour flight to Calgary Alberta and spent the day, The rest of the trip involved driving over the mountains to Banff, (beautiful) and then on to the Okanogan Valley in British Columbia. The views were spectacular and it reminded me of a trip I took through the Andes in Venezuela 17 years ago. You sure stay focused on roads like that!! We then continued on to Vancouver and flew home to Toronto. Did I mention that we all managed to get the stomach flu on different days during the trip?? What fun. Anyway, despite the fact that I got very little exercise done on my foot, I did manage to do a lot of walking and it helped loosen things up. Unfortunately most of the hotels did not have enough pillows for me to prop up my foot and I got very swollen. A good nights rest at home with some ice fixed me up in no time.
Well, I went back to PT yesterday and got the heat, ultrasound and massage treatment. The massage was new and it hurt like &*^%#$. When I got up this morning my tendon screamed at me like never before but after a few minutes it loosened up and felt better than ever. I guess the massage really works. I go back tomorrow for some more abuse. I am hopeful to be out of the boot in one week and driving very shortly. The inability to drive yet is proving very difficult as I need people to drive me to PT and other appointments. I can’t wait till this is over.
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Posted on August 21st, 2008 by jenny
Hi everyone, finally got the cast off this morning after a total of almost 11 weeks in fibreglass including pre-op. Now I get to deal with the snakeskin that seems to have grown on my leg and especially my heel during that time. When I got home an hour ago, I took off my boot and had a good look. Its like having a bad bad sunburn that is peeling but about 5 layers thick. Gross!!! It is coming off in sheets and I had to stop myself. The ortho tech said to soak it and use a lot of moisturizer. I think I will be shedding for weeks. Anyway, I am now sitting in my lazy boy with my foot up sans boot. It is the weirdest feeling since I am moving parts in my foot slowly back and forth that haven’t moved in over 2 months. Feels really good though. I am looking forward to my first PT session this coming Monday. By the way, there were 3 more casualties at the clinic today. One was another woman with a 7 month old baby, (only two months older than mine when I ruptured) She will be having surgery tomorrow. The second one ruptured his exactly the same as mine and had to have surgery the day before his wedding four weeks ago, and the third was a guy in his fifties who ruptured his trying to launch his boat. If you count the lady who had surgery the same day as me that makes 5 of us at this one clinic. What a club to join!! Before I did this I had only heard of one other person who had done it and didn’t think it was very common. Oh yeah, and at a wedding I went to last month, there were 3 couple at our table, myself and the husbands of both other couples had ruptured their achilles in the past 10 years. Go figure. Happy healing everyone, I will keep you posted on my PT next week.
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Posted on August 19th, 2008 by jenny
Yes, I did it, I am walking FWB before my baby. Ha! Ha! Ha! But it was pretty close and he still wins the cuteness award big time. Anyway, the fibreglass finally comes off it two days and I get the boot! Yay, and in six days I finally start PT. Ten weeks in a cast is a very long time and I am sooooo excited. I will let you all know how my first PT goes. According to most of your posts this is a very conservative protocol with a late start for PT, but better late than never!!
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