The beginning of my story
November 22, 2011 by xplora
I have had a lot of comment on this site but I have not had a page of my own until now. I have my reasons and now I feel it is time to put it all down for posterity. My name is Stuart, I am 52 living near Sydney, Australia. For most of my life I have been a distance runner but I have enjoyed many other active sports and outdoor activities. Like most here, I am not a sedentary person and have enjoyed a full and active life. There are a few changes to it now but no reason to stop living a full life. I am just over 6 months through this ordeal and things are going well. There are many different methods employed to treat this injury and I don’t say my way is the best or the one others should follow. It worked for me so this is my story. I hope it helps someone.
The first 2 weeks
It seems surreal. I keep thinking back to that moment of stupidity and blame myself when in fact the injury was most likely inevitable. A week ago I did 5 canyons in 3 days. Jumping, climbing and all that hard stuff. Today, at a family BBQ I lunged forward to catch something falling although having absolutely no chance of catching it. Timing could not have been worse. We were due to head south to our property in the Victorian High Country to start the building process. We have a small farm (126ac) with river frontage to one of the best trout streams in the Victoria. The mountain trails are at our gate and in winter you can be backcountry skiing in ½ an hour. Our journey had been delayed due to the death of a close friend and as it was Easter the funeral was put off due to public holidays.
There was no need for scans or even a doctors examination, as I knew instantly what had happened and how long it would take to get back on my feet. I was thinking 12 weeks to get my life back but really had no idea that it would in fact be much longer. I was driven to the hospital and hobbled into the emergency room on my heel. I wasn’t offered a great deal of medical advice. Mostly standard textbook. Surgery was advised as it had a lower re-rupture rate. Here I am thinking that this thing could go again in the years to come. I know different now. Seeing only that I needed to be at the funeral of my long time friend, I opted for surgery in the public hospital as for me to go private would have put surgery on the day of the funeral. I waited 3 days in a hospital bed, being bumped back for more urgent surgery. Finally I was in and later that day discharged with a half cast with my foot pointing down, crutches and told no weight bearing for 6-8 weeks.
While resting, the pain was virtually zero however whenever I moved on crutches the pain quickly rose to severe in my calf. The funeral was the next day and it took its toll. To get to the burial site I had to walk on crutches for 400m and then there were no chairs. By the end of the day I was in severe pain. Pain medication is important but the morphine based drugs made me sick. I found straight paracetamol every 6 hours to be the best and after 2 weeks I needed much less.
All was going well but then 3 days after surgery I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat. I was hot then cold and felt nauseous. The next day I suffered from hot flushes and felt agitated and restless. Fearing an infection I went to the hospital. My blood pressure was through the roof and after waiting many hours, my cast was taken off and the wound checked. All was fine. As the new cast went on I began to feel hot again. I started to suspect another cause for my symptoms. A trip to my local doctor the next day and by the end of that week, a week of little sleep or food and it was confirmed. A simple case of cast claustrophobia and anxiety. The nights are the worst when everything is quiet and your mind won’t stop so I would take a small pill and usually have a good night sleep.
Coming to terms with this injury can take some. Reading blogs and scientific journals helped to some degree and I quickly decided that I needed to get out of the cast and into a boot. I rang a few physios and found one that had a good range of motion boot then I made an appointment to see my surgeon to get the OK. He was surprisingly sympathetic so it was fitted the next day. My wound was checked and redressed and I was sent home with a 7.5 degree planta flexion. This, I was to discover, could have caused serious long term healing issues. I also learned the crutches fitted at the hospital were the wrong size and would have caused other issues in my elbows if I were to use them for the projected 6 weeks.
While sitting around there is too much time to think and surf the net. Reading many of the blogs on this site and others started to get to me. It may have been the frame of mind I was in at the time but many had this competitive air about them and I found myself searching for those who had returned to normal activity as fast as possible to find out any way I could do the same. I also found blogs that bragged about doing the most ridiculous things at a very early stage. I learned a great deal about this injury from medical journals and fortunately my early science background had some medical input and I was able to understand most of it. I realised that reading the blogs only increased my level on anxiety, so I stopped.
Rest, elevation and the occasional trip to a coffee shop for a change of surrounds. Finding distractions to take your mind off your circumstance but as I said, the nights are the worst. My life had changed again and I knew it would affect my partner as well. Our dreams will have to be put back and she will have to bear the load for a while. Guilt, blame, frustration and anger all need to be controlled to keep a good relationship going. Patience in ever increasing measures needs to be learned. My other AT was starting to get sore and then I began to worry about when it was going to let go. Not unusual as it is now taking all the load of your body. It is still comes to my mind at times, usually when it is sore, but I have come to terms it now. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best is how I have lived my life so that is what I will do.
Well its finally good to see you’ve done a blog Stuart!
Couldn’t agree more with the last but one paragraph.
I think the most likely people to injure themselves (active, sporty), as I put it in a post last week, will tend to ignore the stuff they don’t want to read (healing long, takes ages, no point rushing) and pick out any good bit they do want to until you end up thinking “if I do all the bits from blogs A, B and C, I can be back to full sport fitness in 12-18 weeks”.
As I think I’ve pointed out a few times though in other posts, even when you read all the “glory stories”, they don’t end up back to what I call full sporting fitness that much earlier, at best by a few weeks. I wish the front page information could be re-written to point this out to people!
Anyway, keep up the entries and many personal thanks from me for all your comments!
Bcurr - I have been busy writing. It is all finished and I will publish a new post every couple of days up to when I leave in a week. Going to miss all of you.
Hi Stuart, also glad to read your blog although sorry you’ve been through it. This class of 2011 has been some hard work, I’m glad I didn’t know what I was signing up for at the beginning!
Also having the debate about how much to do with the contralateral leg/AT, actually its causing a lot of anxiety in my head but I guess what will be will be. Looking forward to the rest of your posts and photos.
Ali - I guess you worry about the other because of the entire experience you have been through which has not been pleasant. It would not be as bad if it happened to the other. I have only just started being concerned again as I look to the huge task ahead and it is a little sore. I have considered it another wake up call and have started doing some strengthening exercises again. Got a bit slack while living in the tent. I just can’t afford it to happen until I have a house built and a verandah to sip beer on. I am actually thinking more of how hard it will be for my partner to put things off again or do it on her own. At least we would know what to expect as far as rehab goes. We can’t live our lives in worry about something that actually does have a small chance of happening so you will have to do your best to put it behind you. It was good to read that you have booked a climbing trip. That is positive thinking.
Ali, I returned to my “high-risk” sport after my first ATR healed, and I can prove that was the best decision for me, because I’m still happy with it after I DID tear the other AT 8 years later. But deciding to opt for gentler activities afterwards, in the hopes of saving the other AT, is a sensible and honorable decision for a person to make, even though it wasn’t right for me.
Faced with important decisions, I often find it helpful to imagine how I’d react if each decision turned out BADLY. (As bcurr suggested above, we’re all already pretty good at looking at BEST-case scenarios!) In one case, you return to your fave sport and tear the other side. In the other case, you quit your fave sport and. . . (a) regret it later, or (b) tear the @#$%& AT anyway, doing something non-sporty — like tripping on stairs, or on a curb, or jumping into an impromptubgame of whatever at a picnic. . . Then the question is, would one of those scenarios really get you down? If so, maybe choose the other. . .
Stuart/Norm, Maybe I’m paranoid but I do think I perceived a kind of unspoken “see you next time” from some. Having said that, I do believe we can’t rely on feelings and it is important to look at the evidence. It isn’t unknown territory now so you are right, the same problems pre op should not happen again, plus having the right contacts is a help. I do have some ?irrational fears - about the graft breaking down, the tendon splitting somewhere else etc. etc. When I had the first cast I had to have it removed after a week, the cast got stained and I was afraid the wound was leaking which would lead to an infection… fears which were unfounded.
Yeah, Im looking forward to the trip in June, it will be camping as the island is uninhabited so we can only get to the island by boat. There is quite a bit of sea cliff climbing, some of the grades will be a bit full on for me but there are a few routes which are within my capability. Yup can’t see any of us sitting around for too long with grass growing under the feet
Ali - everything you are feeling is in my opinion absolutely normal. This injury is still very raw in your mind and it takes a while to recover from the mental trauma. Probably longer than the physical trauma. A while ago I was taking to someone about dreams (not sure if you were in on that as well) but as you mentally recover from a trauma the type of dream will change. Being chased in a dream is not having control in your life. Doing the chasing means you are regaining control. I have always said to prepare for the worst and hope for the best and you should have a good outcome either way. Do not start feeling guilty about having these feelings. These feelings are real and those perceived unspoken words are very real as well. The thought of doing the other has been in my mind constantly. I spoke with my father’s surgeon recently about the same thing and he said he hasn’t seen any return business. Sometimes I think it would be better (once the house is done) to get it over with and do the other one. Then I can just do what ever I want without the worry. In short, I don’t think I am any different to you. Being a ‘bloke’ I just hold it in more. Its good that you are so honest in your posts. By the way, I have a comment on your last post waiting for moderation.
Ali - maybe time to get proactive with the other AT. I dug his up from my files. It takes a bit of reading but you could print it and take it to a PT if there is stuff you need to clarify. One important fact is the the gastroc does less than 1/3 of the work. Bent knee heel raise leaning forward works the soleus which does most of the work.
http://www.touchpharma.com/files/article_pdfs/Young.pdf
I have started doing this stuff again and the pain in the other AT is much less. The article also looks at insertion tendon problems and some of the exercises are not good for that injury. I did some one leg raises today and found my bad leg outdid my good. Managed to do 40 in a row on the bad and faded at 37 on the good. I will endeavour to keep working on both.
Hi Stuart, thanks for this reference, actually its very readable. I have been doing some of these exercises including eccentrics pre and post op. Im doing some weights also. Pain is strange one, so subjective - there is pain and pain. I do think when it comes to this injury I am often more honest on the blog than anywhere else! There are many of us going through the same debate in our heads I’m sure. Good to voice the fears or they just lurk there so thanks for support, much appreciated. Thanks for the photo references - the area is just as beautiful as I imagined, your partner is very talented! Yup its a pressure to get a balcony up and running for beers! Been running and dancing a bit more, I am not brave enough to go to a ceilidh yet!
Still having trouble loading images. I have been through the wordpress help pages and I seem to be doing everything it says. The images have been uploaded to the media library but still will not insert into the document. When I hit the insert button I get a blank screen over the page edit screen and nothing happens. The images are not huge (100kb). Any suggestions from anyone.
Hi Stuart- I can tell you how I’ve been embedding images.
1) Load the image into your library.
2) From the library, “view” the image. Click the image again, until you are looking at only the image. In the address bar, you’re looking for blah-blah-blah.jpg
3) Copy that address- it’s the address of the image you’re about to embed.
4) When editing a post, use the “html” tab, not visual.
5) On the html edit page, there is an “img” option. When you click it, you’ll be asked for the address of an image. Paste in the address you copied in step 3.
Thanks - I’ll give it a go tomorrow.
Stuart/Ryan, Ive tried it and it works! Oh dear I can see me spending hours now obsessively adding photos to old posts….
Thanks Ryan - it worked (more that I managed to follow your instructions). Thanks heaps. I don’t have many photos yet but knowing Ali had issues I thought I would work it out. I know others post photos but going the way wordpress suggests must be a problem to others as well. It would be great to have these instructions linked to the front page for a permanent and handy record.
Hi Stuart, sorry to hear you getting a bit of jip with the other AT. Heres sending you positive vibes and hoping its down to you just doing a lot of physical demanding work and its a temporary problem.
Stuart…. You are so roque. How awesome. Tell me when u ditched the cast and went to the boot, did you remain NWB? Great blog.