Rupture Rapture!

Today is my 6 month post op anniversary and all is going well. I had my final doctors appointment yesterday and he was pleased with my progress and stated I could proceed with caution on getting back to normal routines. Like many others at the 6 month mark I only think about by atr injury for brief periods and can really see that I’ll be back to 100% in the near future. Perhaps my most satisfying accomplishment to date is being able to walk up and down stairs while leading with my toe rather than with the heal. I actually caught myself running up the stairs the other day!
I have not been faithful to my rehab program but despite the time off, I can see vast improvement just by being active in general (walking and biking). I have also been faithful for the past week of taking a yoga class everyday which besides being just a wonderful rehab for the body in general has helped me identify and recognize some weakness areas in my injured leg that I was not really aware of through pt or general exercise. My final comment on the yoga is that my plan is to stick with the yoga as my first line of defense against this ever happening again. If you are not doing it or have never done it before - go give it a try. While I have enjoyed the achilles blog immensely, i hope to never return as a repeat offender. Good luck to everyone in the New Year! Keep the faith, you will get better…..

I’ll hit the 13 week post op tomorrow and all seems to be going well. My range of motion is really responding to stretching and just more general use of the leg. I still feel very tight but a 10 -15 minute warmup on an exercise bike seems to make a huge difference in advance of any type of PT or work at home. Folks in my office have noticed and comment that i’m walking more normal and with less of a limp. Mostly doing leg strengthening exercises (extensions, press, toe raises) with a healthy mix of balancing on the injured foot while pulling resistance bands with the other or, my new favorite, balancing on a piece of foam with the bad leg while throwing a medicine ball at an angled trampoline and catching it on the return. Another enjoyable one is just balancing on the foot as long as you can, then trying it with your eyes closed. You can feel all the little ankle muscles just firing like crazy to keep you upright.

Also working on a mix of everyday motions like mastering my form on small step downs. Its amazing to me that the body ‘forgets’ a motion its done thousands of times before, or the body is so afraid that it instinctively makes you twist the foot out or lead with the heel without you really realizing what you are doing. I had to stand in front of a mirror and watch my good leg step down so I could mimic it with my left. My biggest flaw right now is that I’m planting the outside of the foot first and rolling it down to the inside, or keeping the inside raised. My therapist has me doing some specific ankle strengthening to help plus I have to stare down at my foot while walking to ‘will it’ into the correct position. It also helps that my wife enjoys yelling at me when I she notices my bad form.

Hang in there folks - it will get better….

I had my 11 week appointment with the doctor and he officially green lighted me for kicking the boot to the curb. While I have more or less been sans boot for the past 2 weeks, its nice to get professional concurrence. In other news, I have now been to 4 pt sessions and my therapist likes what he sees and thinks i’m in the 90th percentile of the best recovery he has personally seen. He qualified that by saying I still had a lot of ground to cover, but he was pleased with my recovery. So what does that mean? I’m not as well off as some others I have read on the site, but at slow speeds I can more or less walk without a limp, but the faster I go the more I wobble. Starting to regain strength and flexibility but stairs and uphill are a challenge. I do notice improvement every week now and think the combination of PT and goal setting is one of the secrets. I’m excited about the possibility of more significant improvement over the next few weeks. We shall see…

I had a dream last night that I was running/jogging. During the dream I remembered that I had the injury, stopped running, looked at my achilles and then started back again. It felt great! Can’t wait to actually run again. I’m taking it as a positive omen.

I had a little drama with the Doctors office over starting rehab but I persevered with a compromise solution that had me starting last week (more of an intro) then the real deal this week. I’ve been almost fully 2 shoes for the past 2 weeks with boot usage as needed. While I have progressed significantly from my first jaunt with both shoes, it feels so good to be free of the boot. The boot and i have a love/hate relationship - the boot loves me and I hate it. Well it may not be that harsh of a relationship because as much as I hate to admit it, the boot can feel good.

As an interesting side note, I went to 40th birthday party this weekend and somewhere along the way between my 6th and 8th vodka drink, I was able to walk for a few moments like a normal person. While I enjoyed my new found celebrity and performed a couple maneuvers for the crowd, I strode back into the pit and had the crew strap on the boot before exiting back on the track for for a few more laps.

No offense to my cross dressing ruptured achilles friends, but my wife and I, and 2 other couples hit a gay nightclub friday night and saw a drag queen contest! What a hoot. Talk about taking your mind off the injury. All I’m going to say is that’s some funny funny stuff.

Hitting week 7 post surgery tomorrow and all still seems to be progressing well. I have a pending update appointment with my surgeon to discuss some timeline issues, but I got a green light from another surgeon to increase some activities in general. For me that means more bike riding, some time in the gym and a real effort to watch the food/beer intake while trying to work some more situps. I’m a naturally thin guy, but i’m at least 7-10lbs over my norm with the belly starting to overhang the belt and a real fear of early onset of man boobs. The boobs might come in handy if I pursue a drag queen career, but I really dont see that happening……..

Oh yeah, I did my first stint in two shoes this past Sunday. Felt very good. Even though I have not been green lighted by the doc, I had been at the beach and had to use the boot in the sand and water. My boot was a soggy sandy mess so I decided to move on. No problems, but I’m back in the boot for life outside the house or for other activities requiring any effort other than standard walking around in the house. For those wondering what an Aircast will do in the water, it floats like a cork and then drys out pretty quickly after that (once removed). A little time underwater is probably good for odor mitigation…..

Tomorrow marks my 6 week calendar anniversary of my surgery date (7/22/09) and I think I’m doing well all things considered. I started a recovery tracking blog on a different site but I found this community and figured I’d switch over. Long story short I’m FWB and have been for 3 weeks with no pain whatsoever. Its been interesting reading all the other stories, particularly as it pertains to coming out of the boot. My doctor said at my appointment last week that I’m 6 weeks more in the boot (10/6/09) - that’s right at 3 months in the boot before starting physical therapy! That seems too long based on some blogs but I clearly don’t want to risk a re-rupture. I’m walking a lot at home without the boot and have been for 2 weeks, but i have been very careful not to flex my foot (walking peg leg style). I do minor stretching plus I’m very active in general and have started back at the gym last week plus light bike riding.

Anybody have any thoughts on waiting 3 months to start PT? I feel great and I’m ready to get started!