Snap!
Hi All,
I had surgery this morning and now I am writing from my bed. Everything went fine. So far, I haven’t experienced any pain or discomfort in my leg. I received general anesthesia and a nerve block that hasn’t worn off yet. My throat is a little bid dry and sore, so I am keeping my speaking to a minimum.
Anyways, this is how it happened…
It was exactly 15 days ago, while I was playing soccer. Since I arrived kind of late to the game, I didn’t warm-up or stretched appropriately. I was also wearing my 3-year old cleats that were in pretty bad condition. Thinking back, I did everything wrong. However, I had never had any injury apart from a couple of sprains in my ankles; besides, the first digit of my age is still a 2 so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. Well, I was wrong again.
About 40 minutes into the game, I was keeping up with my marking responsibilities during a defensive corner kick. As soon as the ball was kicked, I tried to sprint and I felt the kick in the back of my left leg and a loud “snap!” It took me about 5 minutes to look for “Achilles tendon injury” in my iPhone and realize what had just happened. I was a little bit puzzled because I was not in so much pain (I’d say that it was 4/10).
I managed to drive myself to the ER. Driving was not easy because I drive a manual stick car, so I had to use my heel to press the clutch. In the ER the pain subsided and I was feeling rather well. However, I could not extend my left foot so I was almost sure it was the AT. I was told I had a partial tear and that I should see my PCP between 5 to 7 days and went home with a splint and crutches.
Within the next two days I became increasingly uneasy with the “waiting” so I called to my PCP office and got a referral to the orthopedist. I was 8 days out when I went to the orthopedist. He felt the gap in my left leg and my Thompson test resulted positive. He told me that I had a complete tear (no MRI). I was scheduled for surgery one week after that, that is, today.
So far, I have managed to get around with crutches just fine and, for the most part, I have not been in pain (0/10). I think that the fact that I was not in pain misled the doctors in the ER to assume that I had only a partial tear. Eventually, this resulted in my surgery being 15 days after the injury. I have been reading many stories of people in their blogs and, in general, their surgeries were much sooner. Oh, well… not much use in complaining about this.
I am glad that I found this blog, so I can share my story and read yours. I’ll be posting more soon. My wife just brought my 10-month old to play with me for a while. She will be playing with the keyboard for a while now…
Paulo.
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Hi Paulo,
Welcome!! I’m surprised too that you didn’t have surgery sooner. My rupture was on July 23 - went to ER that night and they said see ortho doc on Monday. Saw the doc and he scheduled surgery for Tuesday. I tried postponing surgery as I was flying to Vegas on Friday. Doc was like yah, you’re not going to Vegas. What he said was that the longer you wait to have surgery, the tendon will actually start to shrink and it will make it harder toreattach. I, like you - felt no pain, just heard the snap and slid down the half pipe I was running up.
Good luck with recovery. Sore throat will prob go away by tomorrow -who knew they put tubes down your throat in surgery. Oh, numbness took over 24 hours to go away - although I had by bone shaved down to so that could be why.
Don’t worry about the ‘delay’. My doctor told me that he prefers to do the surgery between 1-2 weeks post rupture. He says the tendon is essentially frayed, like spaghetti and it is very hard to approximate the ends. By waiting, the tendon congeals and it’s easier to bring it all back together. My surgery was 11 days post ATR. I feel like I have done very well, so hopefully his protocol is a good one. Good luck and happy healing!
Thanks for your replies! I’ll keep in touch.