Hello all, found this site a few days ago and have really found it interesting. I suffered my ATR on 11/10/11 while working out on the treadmill. Came out of nowhere, just like everyone says. It felt like somebody hit me with a baseball bat as hard as they could in the back of the leg, I heard a snap, turned around to see what/who just did this to me, but of course, no one was there. Within 30 minutes I was at the ER and the Dr. immediately diagnosed the ATR (as I suspected) to my dismay. They put me in a cast and sceduled surgery for the following week. Needless to say I was miserable.
I am 37 years old and woud consider myself in pretty good shape. I work as a full time firefighter, and love my job, so being off from work really sucks. I also play ice hockey, fish, hunt, golf, etc. all of which are now on hold untill I can heal. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much at night the first few days, and unfortunately, neither did my wife. It felt so uncomfortable trying to elevate my leg and sleep with the cast on, but I did manage a bit of sleep.
November 16, finally came, my surgery day. I knew it was going to be rough, but also was a step in the right direction. I had a complete tear, so surgery was suggested by my Ortho and I agreed. With my active career and lifestyle, I wanted to make sure I would have the best chance to a full recovery. So I went under and the next thing I knew I was eating ice chips and I had a sore throat. I was told the surgery went well and to get plenty of rest and do as little as possible for the next couple of weeks. I was prescribed Lortab and took one when I got home. Later that night I hobbled to bed and slept like a baby, until about 4AM when the Lortab had stopped working!!! All I can say is that I was in the worst pain of my life, I took 2 more pills and prayed they would start working soon. For the next 45 mins. or so I felt like someone had a pipe wrench on my achilles and kept tightening it more and more. Finally the pain went away, or at least enough for me to fall back asleep.
The next 2-3 days were still very uncomfortable, but I knew now that every 4 hours I had to take a Lortab or else the pain would get unbearable again. So I set my phone alarm in the middle of the night to stay ahead of the pain. By day 4 post surgery, the pain was definitely getting better. I was sleeping in to make my days shorter. My son is in school and wife at work, so the less time I had to spend alone the better. All I can say is thank God for my laptop, I’ve probably spent 12-14 hours a day on it researching this injury, and everything I could do to help the healing process speed up.
Thanksgiving has now come and gone and I am very anxious for my first checkup this Wednesday. I have been doing everything they told me to so far. My right leg is elevated just about 24 hrs a day in some way or another. I can get around on the crutches pretty well, but still get frusrated that I can’t carry much while using them. I have been taking a few different supplements since a couple days after the surgery and hopefully they are working. Not sure if I can mention what I’m taking on here, but if I can I will…especially if I get a good report from my surgeon this Weds. I am supposed get my cast taken off and go into a boot. Not sure it will be much better, but again I’m looking at it as a step in the right direction. I have noticed there’s quite a bit of wiggle room in my cast the last few days, so I’m hoping that means that the inflammation/swelling has gone down and maybe the supplements I’m taking are working. Either that or my leg is shrinking from not using it, hopefully that is not the case though.
So I guess that pretty much sums up my 1st few weeks. Hopefully I will get some responses with lots of positive feedback. I will post again after my checkup on Wednesday hopefully with some good news of progress. Thanks in advance for your input and support.
TC
9 Comments »
It was quite surprising to me how little control I had at the beginning.