While waiting for my surgery day to come, my friends jumped into action. For those of you who are new to this, and have kids, or need a lot of help with your recovery, the best thing we found was carecalendar.org. You can log on and create your own calendar, inputting things you need, like meal, rides to the doctor, rides for your kids, housework, whatever! Its been a lifesaver and I can’t recommend it enough. You give your friends the calendar number and password, and they log on and just sign up for whatever they can do, without you having to ask them. The site even sends them reminders to their email or phone! We couldn’t have survived without it and had meals for 5 weeks.

The other big help for me was the office chair my husband brought home. It enabled me to wheel around and get our baby from her crib, something I couldn’t do with crutches.

My first surgery was January 20th. Surgery went very well and they were able to get my foot back to neutral. I got very sick from the pain meds and anesthesia. They had me on vicodin and percocet. Got sick in the recovery room, in the car on the way home and at home until the next day. Once I stopped taking the vicodin, I was okay. Pain wasn’t actually that bad after the 2nd day. I had the hard cast for about 10 days, and then went to the boot, NWB.

I had been crawling around on the floor with my baby, without the boot on, as it always caught on the carpet, and the weight of it hurt my knee. I got overconfident and starting going around the house with my crutches and without the boot, and only wearing it when I went out. My doctor was really not very specific on when and how long I should wear the boot.

I found this blog site on a wednesday night, a week before PT, when I was searching to find out what PT might be like.

The next morning, after 5 weeks NWB, 1 week away from starting PT, I fell in my kitchen reaching for my crutches. I was not wearing the boot and repuptured my achilles. This time, it felt more like a tear on both sides of my ankles. My 7 year old son says I said “F@$”. Nice. I think it hurt more the second time around, but maybe some of that was mental.

A visit back to the ortho and an MRI confirmed a new rupture, slightly lower than the first time around. Surgery was scheduled again for March 5. More on that next post.