Week 0 (pre-op): October 1-7, 2012
After the first night I spend the next morning calling Orthopedists to see who could see me. Got some recommendations from Facebook friends but I couldn’t find one in my town who could see me that morning. Finally found someone who had some goof reviews on the usual medical review sites (and is an ankle and foot specialist) about 40 minutes away so I headed out.
Immediately failed the Thompson test and he gave me a standard black foam boot (90 degrees fixed), crutches, and an appointment for surgery the following Monday (10/8).
The rest of the week I spent googling for info. and I quickly found AchillesBlog and spent time (lots if it!) reading comments. Extremely helpful - not sure how you can successfully navigate healthcare without sites like this. The few sentences of real conversation most Dr.’s have time to give is not sufficient to learn all the minutia. Without this site it seems like each patient has to reinvent the wheel.
Went ahead and got a second opinion from a nice and helpful local doctor who suggested the conservative treatment (immobilization 8-12 wks.) because he thought it was a high tear near the calf muscle (even got an MRI that he used to confirm his assumption).
After further reading and talking to friends who had the surgery I decided to opt for the surgery in order to get back to life and work more quickly. (Spoiler alert - after the surgery the doctor said it was a plain-Jane clean break a couple inches above my heel).
Hello fellow TX ATR’er. Sounds like you are on the road to recovery! I did mine about 11 weeks ago, two weeks after moving to TX. Things will get better. The first month or so was the worst since you really can’t do much moving around. But once you get a boot, you will get some freedom back and life starts to feel normal again.
Comment by crutchesintx — October 27, 2012 @ 8:38 am
Have you gone back to Dr since surgery? Do you still have stitches in?
Comment by cgdh13 — October 27, 2012 @ 9:55 am