michel’s achilles blog

So it’s been a loooong while since I wrote anything here.

Let’s just say my Achille’s rupture wasn’t the only bad thing that happened to me last year - my wife decided she wanted something else, so we separated, I sold her my half of the house, and moved…
(you’ll notice I changed my header picture…)

But! To all of you out there who may stumble upon this page, just out of your cast, discouraged as you look at the wobbly piece of useless steak that used to be your calf muscle, unable to move your foot, I can tell you this:

IT GETS BETTER!

It does.

I was barely able to cycle this summer: couldn’t get up on the pedals so couldn’t do hills or long rides. Walking for any extended distance was a pain (literally).
So I changed sports for a bit. I went sailing. Kayaking. And I was fortunate enough to have a friend who let me use one of his paddleboards (half the time on a LPC Stealth no less) for most of the summer (Thanks Sean!), and that helped a lot with balance and building strength again in my ankle. The good thing about paddleboarding is that if you fall, you just end up in the water, no harm done. I did have a temporary setback in August as my scar was spitting stitches (removed about 3 inches of stitching in total), so I had to stop paddleboarding for a couple of weeks in order to avoid infections.

August/September/October was hell with my separation and moving, so I didn’t make much progress on building more strength. In November I was fortunate enough to get sent to Amsterdam for work, and during the weekends I walked, and walked, and walked all around Amsterdam, until I couldn’t walk anymore. Canals you say? Boat rides? Nope. I walked.
By the way, the Artis Royal Zoo, and the National Maritime Museum are great places to spend a Sunday afternoon!

What freaked me out when I had my skiing accident last winter was that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to ski at the same level again. So when the season started in December, I was more than a little apprehensive about getting back on the boards and going down the hill.

I bought new ski boots back in September - Tecnica Inferno Ski Boots - just wanted to make sure that my foot would be well fitted and protected.

So I chose a beginner’s trail and went really carefully… let’s just say that when I was at the bottom of the run I had a little tear of happiness because I knew my skiing had been saved. The only thing I try to avoid is bumps (which I never liked anyways) so as not to suddenly jar my ankle out of alignment or have any kind of impact.

At the office they told me I had to take my 2012 vacation days before today or I would lose them.
So I went skiing.
Every day.
For the last 23 days.
And it’s been the best therapy for my injury so far!
The ankle feels strong. And I feel good again :)

I even put on my red hat and played Santa to myself and got a new pair of Rossignol Experience 98 Skis for Christmas.

These things are a lot of fun, be it for floating in powder or carving on the groomed stuff!!!

Oh, and remember that analogy between the calf straight out of the cast and a hanging piece of meat ready for the BBQ?

It will build back up again. The volume isn’t quite equal between both calves yet, but muscle definition is back, and strength definitely is!

So to all of you stumbling onto this page: hang in there. It gets discouraging. It’s a pain not being able to do the things you love for so long. But you’ll be back. And you’ll enjoy all those things you love to do *even more!*
I know I did. No one could have prevented me from going skiing these last 23 days.

• Tired? Skiing.
• Snowing and no visibility? Skiing.
• -25C? Skiing.
• “Aren’t you tired of skiing every day?” Nope. Skiing :)

2013 is going to be a good year again - finally.

 
So here’s to a Happy New Year to all, and to all a Quick Recovery.

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