starshep’s AchillesBlog

Yep, that’s the building where my doctors offices are and yep that aisle in the parking lot is where I ruptured my tendon. I do have to say that it was a great place for it to happen but nope, I didn’t plan it that way. My wife had some minor foot surgery 2 weeks prior to my injury. By that time, she could walk short distances but had trouble if the distance was too far. We went to her doctor’s office (also in the same building) to get him to sign off on a handicap parking permit form. By the time we got there, her doctor was only going to be in the office for another 10 minutes and then on vacation for 2 weeks. So when we pulled up to his office, I told my wife to wait in the car, since she was still moving pretty slowly, and I would take the form in. Just to make sure I got there in time, I decided to sprint to the building. I took about 3 steps, heard the “pop” and knew exactly what happened. I limped back to the car and told her that she would need to take the form in. When she got back (turns out we had plenty of time), we took the wheelchair out of the car (which she had been using the week before), put me in it and took me up to my primary care doctor’s office. Fortunately he was able to squeeze me in and gave me a referral to an orthopedic surgeon.

Today was my 16 week follow up with my orthopedic surgeon and yep, his office is in the same damn building. We do have other buildings in Elmhurst but this is a pretty big building. I thought it might be interesting to park in about the same location where the rupture happened and retrace my steps, this time without sprinting (not that I had a choice this time). I have to say, it did feel kinda weird walking through that area and my walking was a bit shaky. Still I wanted to face the demon and get it over with.

The visit with my orthopedic surgeon was pretty uneventful and he discharged me from his care pending finishing my therapy. I asked him how long it takes for the tendon to reach maximum strength. He told me 6-12 months and at this point, about the only thing that will cause a re- rupture is if I fall or put a lot of stress on my tendon doing something like sprinting or making a cutting move. He also said I could start jogging once therapy ends. Just before he left, he mentioned that I opted to go non-surgical and that even if I had chosen surgery, I’d be sitting here 16 weeks later in about the same shape. That was kinda good to hear.

For all of you planning your next rupture, I would highly recommend that you do it just outside your doctors office. I sure makes everything a lot easier.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 14th, 2012 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.