My Achilles Tendon Rupture Adventure

ATR friends, its been forever! 

I’ve been reading daily and thinking of all of you…Especially the newbie’s, the re ruptures (what progress you guys are making this second time around) and those with wound issues – headed up by the great success / progress of kristinati’s wound)(DaveLeft, Hillary – sending good wound viibes)…And Richard – I’ll send you some REAL movies to cry at…I think I’ve seen them all with this injury – more turtle races please.  I laugh at all you UK folks with your word changes and sentence formations – you make life sound so easy!  Special THANK YOU to EdForman for fast friendship and support from the opposite coast!  Damacar – your Ducks are doing well!  But our Bears are going to rule (Marianne – you’re a bear???).  Dennis – can’t wait for the new tshirts.  Hobblit – we’re at the same date, keep the humor and facebook coming.  SFtourguide – great progress – I’ll be in SF on Sunday - we could do a lunch.

Anyway, today is officially my 3 mos post op!  Whoo hoo.  I’m at the wine bar for my pre-date cocktail jotting down some of my milestones for the blog!  I can’t believe the time has flown and not moved at all.

I’ve been two days now in tennis shoes full time and walked a full mile at the track on Wed.  It took 8-9 minutes a lap and I’m averaging a 34 minute mile (keep in mind I was running sub 7 minute miles prior to ATR – basically LESS time than it takes me to do one lap now!)  OH well…I’ll take the walking and shoes.

Other good things:

1.     Love PT – maybe IN LOVE with my PT. Yummy. Its completely the achilles spa.  As much as I love it, I have to say that just with the walking around my house, the gym work outs, and the track this week I’ve improved tenfold on my ROM.  So I love PT, but for some of you on the site, I think the walking really helps.

2.     I love sleeping with out boot, socks anything :-), at least on my foot.  I was pretty conservative about that because I’m an active sleeper.

3.     Mornings the Tendon is VERY tight, but walking around in my shoes right away helps a bit.  I wonder – you guys post 3 months – when does this go away?

4.     About two weeks ago I started showering standing up!  WHAT?  This is cool, I almost forgot if I faced the faucet or back to faucet, had to re learn what worked for all the shampoo’ing, shaving and misc conditioning etc.

           a. I did keep the chair in the shower as it now functions as a shelf and convenient sitting place-  but am happy to ship it to a newbie if anyone would like it in the early stages.  I definitely used it for the FULL three months.

5.     I go to the gym now five days a week and am driving the jeep with the clutch (I’m a lefty ATR).  It feels like great freedom.  You Right ATR’s I don’t know how you do it with the driving.

6.     My incision is straight, but darker now with all the activity.  I need to make sure to apply the mederma and the sun screen.  I’m doing crazy viti’s (are they working?) and viti E on the incision but it just may be in due time.

Not all is perfect – which reminds me to be respectful of this injury:  I have a severe limp and I’m afraid to do anything like running, raises, or elliptical, but in due time.  Happy to do the bike for 20 mins now, and then a full core and upper body work out.  My foot is very numb still from the heel to the three last toes on my foot.  Maybe months before that goes away or never – that’s what PT is saying.  Also, people/Friends now forget that I have the injury and walk faster than me to restaurants, or ask if I can go running today. That bothers me…but oh well, as we know…no one quite gets the enormity of the recovery period.

AND I just booked a trip to Hawaii, and then to a wedding (think I’ll still wear boot due to booze and people), and then to Capitola – coast town in CALI.  Will be gone three weeks.  Whooo hoo.  Dennis I promise to take Achilles tshirt pics and post them in the gallery – mine is now sorta flash dance ripped up cuz it was hot for working out…but will send some photos.

I can’t believe its been three months. Never knew this day would come and very excited for the next three months.  Maybe if I can meet guys WITH the boot and they find me interesting just as someone that sits, I can meet an amazi≈ng guy that will like that I can walk on my own   

Patience and Respect to those that are just starting out.  

Cheers to all….

Kkdub.  Go bears. 

Hi Friends.  Here is the latest.

I took my first trip out of town down to the Bay Area (CA) for work.  Lots of walking around and lots of goofing around but all in all survived it walking no crutches/swelling until TODAY!  I’ve been elevating now for a couple of hours and its just starting to chill out a bit.

I’m posting  a bunch of pics.  One of me returning the wheel chair in the back of the jeep – ahhhhh. Also am doing some normal things like planting flowers and drinking wine on my deck!    You can see my incision healing nicely although lots of swelling at the ankle and bottom of incision due to all the activity this last week.  I’m walking up and down stairs but only in the boot.  My  PT has me walking short distances without shoes/boot but doesn’t recommend I should do this at home yet.  Note also the picutre of Squishy on my keyboard - this is new since the injury….can’t be comfortable.

My first PT ROM measurement was a “1”, and I’m up to a “6” now.  I’m trying to get to normal range of 11 (this is equal to my good foot).  I’m not sure why my PT measures in numbers rather than percentages.

I don’t experience too much pain (except today – but its more dull) but my foot/leg does get tired easily.  I’m doing 15 mins on the bike at the GYM – and its so nice to be going back to the gym.  I think the last three weeks of PT has really been helping.  We’ve also just started single leg presses – boy that was a mental scary one to get over.

Go Bears.  kkdub