meganatr’s AchillesBlog

Apparently surgery went well. My doctor did note with some surprise that my calf muscles are very well developed (I’ve always had strong calves and a lack of flexibility in my calves which may have made me more at risk for ATR). He told me that had to give me additional muscle relaxant during surgery so they could work on me. Ugh. I guess that’s why I’m supposed to be NWB for at least six weeks after surgery - I have to let my super-strong calf atrophy enough so that it doesn’t just snap the tendon again when I can go to PWB!

So this was on my right foot, which means I can’t drive. I’m stuck in the house. Work is 30 miles away and nobody lives nearby so I’m off for a few weeks. (I love my job - supervisory hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. I have a team of 6-8 people under me who measure streamflow in NV. We chase floods and it’s really fun. I typically get about a day in the field every week and the rest of the time I’m managing and analyzing streamflow records as well as doing some small modeling and writing code in XSLT.) I get a lot of personal satisfaction from my career so not being able to go in has been really hard.

My husband got called out on a fire a few days ago and I’ve been by myself since. Luckily the neighbors are nice and invited me over for dinner, and several friends offered to take me to the grocery store when I run out of food and/or visit and keep me company. That is good. My husband is a logistics chief trainee on a Type 3 federal team and he’s loving life - for his day job he’s also a hydrologist (different agency) but he loves the craziness of fire work. Logistics chief is kind of like being a wedding planner, although instead of pretty dresses and beautiful people you deal with smelly firefighters and setting up port-a-johns in the middle of nowhere. He’s been calling me a couple of times a day to make sure I’m okay.

Is anyone else really paranoid about DVT? (deep vein thrombosis) I’ve heard some horror stories and I DON’T WANT TO GO THERE. Now that I’m by myself I keep waking up in the middle of the night paranoid that I have an evil blood clot somewhere that’s out to try to kill me.

I’m a bit over 2.5 weeks post-surgery today. I’m getting some random “weirdo pain du jour” and a couple of nights ago I had horrible stabbing sensations on the side of my ankle. It woke me up around midnight and I got so scared I ended up calling my husband at the fire. He’s been very supportive so he talked to me for an hour while I was in panic mode! Besides that though everything has mostly been okay. I’m dealing with the stir-crazy. I’m trying to eat healthy. I’m doing a bit of teleworking here and there. Occasionally I can feel the staples over the incision and that’s creepy. There are 22 staples!!! I won’t get them out until my next follow up in another 1.5 weeks. I’ve been doing some arms-only cardio thanks to Youtube as well as some very light upper body weight training - just something to keep my mind occupied and part of my body healthy. The doctor didn’t specifically say I couldn’t work out a little so I’m thinking it’s okay to do 20 minutes here and there. I’m also teaching myself to make lace. It’s a completely impractical and time-consuming hobby but that sort of fits my needs right now.

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