Seems like a good start to a journey begins with knowing where your at and then figuring out where your headed. I’m thinking thats kind of how I should document my recovery. So here we go.
When this year began I was at the young age of 36. I was happy, content, and pretty much where I wanted to be. By content I don’t mean lazy. I mean my health was good, my job was good, my family was good, and so on. I was challenged by life, but it was a comfortable challenge. Not the stress filled life that many lead. I had time for the family, friends, fun, and racing. Yep, racing.
The last couple years I’ve gotten back into one of my passions. Motocross racing. After many years of “I can do that” when the local motocross races came to the area I decided to try it again. Granted it was the very last race of the season, I was out of “race” shape, and I hadn’t raced since I was a kid it ended up turning out pretty good. I don’t remember what place I got, think it was 7th out of almost 20 people but it didn’t matter. The passion was rekindled. Next year, we were racing.
Your probably wondering why I said we. We means my wife and I. Yep, thats right, my wife and I. Well, that year we both cleared enough room from our schedules to make 3 somewhat local races. When we didn’t race we were practicing. As strange as it seems it made the year fly by and our fitness level go thru the roof. Before we new it the season was over and we were counting down the days to this season. Especially since we both bought new bikes to race this year. We knew it was going to be a year to remember.
We started out by planning to hit no less than 8 races but had it scheduled to race 14 of them. That way if I decied to bump up to a higher class I could still reach the 8 race minimum to get race series awards. To get those awards I practiced. Practiced. And then practiced again. The first race came, 1st place. Practice was paying off! The next race came, and I got 9th place. I was 2nd in the first moto until the bike quit and wouldn’t refire. So I couldn’t finish it. The second moto I won it. With that result I decided to step it up and jump to the higher class in my next race.
As I do with most things, I approched the higher class with caution. I practice more and told myself to take it easy the first race. Just get my legs under me and feel out the new competition level. So, that’s what I did. I raced the next race like it was my first. I finished 12th. I was happy with that. I felt like I had a lot more to give and they really weren’t that far ahead of me. So it was time to practice up.
Leading up to the day of my injury I had some strange sensations in my right leg. It felt like it was about to fall asleep. Not full needle poking asleep, just tingly asleep. It did this off and on for a couple days. Really haven’t had any problems like that before so I mentioned it to one of my co-workers. He’s a fellow rider to. So I asked if he had anything like that happen to him before. Long story short, no. That didn’t matter to me, tonight I was going to practice after work. It was going to be fun. A bunch of friends were going so we could push each other to get better.
I get to the track and all is normal. The feeling in my leg is gone, and I’m ready to ride. I get my gear on. Get the bike warmed up. Then I warm up. I take some slow laps to get losened up. Now I’m ready to roll and just need someone to ride with. Its seems like you push yourself a little harder to go faster when there’s someone out there with you. Knowing this I head to our parking area and look to see who’s ready to head out.
As I’m headin’ in I see a buddy of mine head out. He’s got a big head start but I know I can catch him. Just got to get out there and let ‘er rip. Just get in a groove. The jumps are feeling good. The corners are even better. Next thing I know he’s only a corner away. Just push hard out of this corner, hit the jump, and I’ll be right on him.
Out of the corner I push hard. Blitz the whoops. Then hit my favorite jump. Nothing’s stopping me now. Just gotta land and accelerate but unbeknownst to me I hit the jump a little harder than normal. Which, is a good thing. In the air I notice I’m going to come up 10 or 15ft long. So I start to brace for it. No big deal. I’ve hit harder than this. Just suck it up and keep on movin’ I thought to myself.
I touch down. Not gently, but I’ve hit worse. It starts out as a jolt. Then turns to pain which focus’ on my right ankle. As I notice it I start leaning to that side to take the pressure off it. When I do the pain forces me to look down. What I see surprises me. It’s my foot pointing straight back at me. I quick glance up to see where I’m headed. Then look down again in surprise. I see the same thing. Knowing I need to get off it I put all my weight on my other foot. Hold myself up on the bars and look down again. It looks normal. Lucky for me the exit to the track was the next corner.
From there I coast off the track and back to the trailer. As I’m coming up to it I’m frantically waving to my wife to come over. Quickly she can tell by my actions it wasn’t good. I kill the bike and coast in. She grabs it. I hop to a chair and sit. “What” she asks? “I think I broke my ankle” I replied. Lucky for me my friends were there. They help pack the trailer and send us on our way to the hospital.
On my hour drive to the hospital the pain got progressively worse. Every bump poked it where it hurt and the problem was, I just couldn’t tell where it hurt. It seemed like my ankle. It was in that area. It just hurt everywhere near there. I couldn’t see though. I had my motocross boot on. We both knew not to take it off until we got to the hospital. It’d just swell up like a balloon.
We get to the hospital and lucky for me it wasn’t that busy. My wife sign’s me in and within’ minutes I’m headed to a room. Granted, this hospital’s quick, but not usually this quick. Needless to say, I’m not compalining. Pretty happy at this point. Enough to joke around with some of the nurse’s that come into my room. This seems to catch them all off guard. So I find it amusing. Even when I was giving my account of what happend I was having fun with it. From this I think they were assuming I was doing better than I was. Finally, the nurse tell’s me the doc’s going to be in shortly.
At this time the boots still on my foot and my wife and I both realize that if its still on my foot when the doc gets there its getting cut off. I really didn’t want that to happen. They were new, and they’re expensive. So, with some help from her we get it off. To my surprise, it wasn’t really swollen. There wasn’t any brusing. Just looked like it was possibly sprianed. Could I be this lucky? Nope.
Next thing I know the doc comes in and pokes around at my foot and ankle. Then has me lay on my stomach and hang my foot off the end of the stretcher. Then theres a couple quick squezes of my calf muscle. Nothing. Doc say’s, here’s your problem. “You ruptured your achilles. I’m going to order an x-ray to see if you broke your ankle as well. Be back when I get the results.”
Not to long after getting my x-rays he pop’s back in the room. Tell’s me its not broken and then confirms that my achilles was ruptured. Next, he proceeds to tell me I need surgery and gives me my walking papers for the night so I could go home after they wraped up my leg. By this time some of the meds were working a little. I stress a “little”.
The next morning we schedule an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon. I want this thing taken care of quick. The sooner the better. Good for me the surgeon thought so to. He saw me right away. Did the standard test to check my achilles. Same conclusion as the other emergency doc. Only thing is he checks a little further. While I’m laying on my stomach he move’s my ankle around. Not gently I might add. Probably good thing he did though. The next thing I hear is “interesting”.
“Probably don’t want to hear your doctor say interesting do ya?” he says. “No, I didn’t think it was good when you said it.” I replied. I knew I didn’t want to hear what he had to say next thats for sure. I knew it was going to be bad. It had to be. Then he says “do you mind if I call in one of the other doc’s to take a look at it?” Of course I’m not going to say no. Second opinions are always good. Right? After a brief search he finds the other doc. I proceed to lay face down again to get the standard check. Same thing happens. The standard test, then moving my ankle around some more. The second doc says to the first doc. “That’s a great catch, I’ve only ever seen that happen on other time.” My doc replies “I’ve never seen it at all.” Then seems kind of excited.
He proceeds to tell me that not only did I completely tear my achilles I manged to tear my paroneal tendon. Then, on top of that, I tore that out of where it attches by the ankle bone. After a breif talk with him he schedules my surgery for Monday. Oh no. Surgery. I’ve never had Surgery.
So there’s the first part of my journey. A little long. But it’s hard to shorten it. In the next couple day’s I’ll continue to update it until I get to my current condition. Hope you enjoyed the background…….
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