I’ve found Achilles Blog to be a wonderful source for information, and as a source of support from reading other blogs, understanding how difficult this is, and not feeling so alone in the process.   

Blog FAIL. 

I have not, however, been as good about sharing my experiences on the blog so others can gain from my experiences.  My apologies.

I have, as I’m sure many of you have, suddenly found a bunch of people I know who’ve had this injury, but I was never really aware.  I started sharing my story with them, and hearing their story as well.

Then, I stopped sharing …

It seems I’m very, very lucky.  I had a great combination of a clean rupture at a good location (right in the middle of the tendon) with good material left above & below the rupture, and (as I’ve since found) a very good Orthopedic Surgeon (Dr. Timothy Codd, Towson, MD).   I stopped sharing my story when every other story I heard was much worse than my own. 

I mapped on my calendar the average times to partial & full weight bearing and time to 2-shoes.  It was good to know I probably had this long to wait to reach those goals.  Then I started making fast progress in P.T.  In no time, I was told to get rid of the crutches & soon thereafter was in two shoes and discharged from P.T. right after that.  It was a wonderful feeling.

I think there is a lesson to come from this, rather than just hearing those with more difficult injuries swearing at me.  As you start your recovery process, this blog gives you the good, bad, and average stories.  Yours will be different.  Be prepared to face difficulty, but also be prepared to work hard, push yourself (within safe limits), and don’t give up hope that your progress may come faster than you think.

Now, I’m still not out of the woods and still not kidding myself about how long I have to full recovery.  I can now fully support my self on my toes of the injured leg, but I am not back to running yet.  When I do run very short distances (beating a green-light across the street, for instance), I feel it for the rest of the day.   My leg muscles still don’t look like they did before the injury, and I’m probably not doing enough to rebuild strength as I should.

Still, my goals remain the same.  1/2 marathon in 2010 … full marathon in 2011.  I don’t know how realistic or stupid that goal may be, but I need to have a goal to shoot for.  I don’t really know anyone who ran a marathon after a full rupture, so I don’t know if I am kidding myself.  I just know I will continue to push myself with respect for this injury and with an appreciation of how much work that little tendon does.

If you’re Achilles-injured and still reading … Good luck!