meganatr’s AchillesBlog

I’m new here and am really happy to have found a community of people to commiserate with.  My story:

I completely ruptured my right Achilles on 6/29 while I was in Germany visiting my husband’s family (we live in Las Vegas so we were quite a ways from home).  Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut, and I was getting bored at an outdoor BBQ where everyone was talking very fast in the local dialect.  It was too much for my little Duolingo-German-trained mind to keep up with, so I decided to play with a similarly bored 7 year old.  In German, I managed to convey to him that since we were both bored, we should play games!  Specifically games that involve jumping around and obstacles!  So we start doing this.  It’s fun, and the next thing I asked him is can he do the games on his hands?  (I was a gymnast for 16 years and even though I’m 33 now, I still do various skills.)  His eyes got wide and he said "nein" so I told him I could and walked through a little obstacle course on my hands!  At this point the rest of the party was paying attention, and the boy’s aunt asked if I could do a cartwheel.  Easy.  I then decided to do the fateful round-off.  I’ve always loved round-offs for their energy transfer and spring, and they’re not so dangerous that you get hurt doing them.  (Riiight.)  I had remembered walking through the grass earlier and noticed that it was flat with no holes or rocks.  As I landed my beautiful little round-off in the aforementioned grass, I heard a weird noise that sounded like I’d kicked up a fist-sized rock that subsequently landed on the pavement.  I actually looked for the rock very briefly before the pain kicked in, and at that point I realized that maybe I hadn’t kicked a rock at all.  I was in a lot of pain and couldn’t put weight on the foot.  My husband ran over to help me to a chair where I immediately elevated the foot.  A bag of frozen peas was produced and I lay there trying not to puke.  As it became clear about half an hour later that I would not be able to walk and it wasn’t just a sprained ankle, we went to the German hospital.

I have to give kudos to the German health care system.  Of course they wouldn’t accept my American insurance (and I hadn’t even brought my insurance card with me anyway).  They told me the fee would be 150 euros, which is like $166 US.  I saw the doctor within 30 minutes of arrival.  I’m glad my husband is fluent in German because I was in a bit of pain and while I know various body part words, describing what had happened was a bit out of reach for me.  The 150 euros we paid got me an ultrasound, diagnosis, and a consultation with two different doctors!  They wanted to operate "sofort" [immediately] but our flight home was scheduled for 7/1, just two days later, so I asked to be stabilized so I could get treated at home.  If I’d had surgery in Germany I would’ve had to stay 2 nights in the hospital.  (Now that I know more about the recovery from an ATR I’m glad I didn’t choose to have surgery in Germany, and plus getting my health insurance straightened out in a foreign country would’ve been a nightmare.)  The German doctors explained that I could have the conservative non-surgical treatment or surgery at home, and they wrote up a diagnosis in German.  They got me nicely stabilized in a half cast so I could fly and gave me a pair of crutches to get around.  In addition they gave me a prescription for a blood thinner.  All of this for 150 euros!  In the US it would’ve probably been $5000 without insurance.  Say what you want about socialized healthcare systems, but I was very impressed with the quality of the care in Germany for such a low price.

Back in the Vegas, I managed to get into see an orthopedic surgeon the day we flew in, on 7/1.  (I had called several doctors from Germany - good thing we signed up for an international calling plan with our cell phones!)  He was amused at the note with the diagnosis from Germany and my husband translated it for him.  He explained my options just like they had in Germany and didn’t pressure me either way.  At this point I’d done a bunch of research and opted for the surgical treatment.  My surgery was scheduled for 7/13.

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