zRob’s AchillesBlog

So good looking blog you have shared. Find all the useful data.

kamueller, safe travels. Phoenix is a great place especially in the winter. Michigan has plunged in to winter early this year.

Junebug, at the airport I was in the boot only, without crutches. I was definitely slower and cautious.The layover was 2 hours and thankfully passport control lines were low. Tight connections would be a concern. I had to pay attention to the traffic in the airport and stayed close to the wall making it easier for others to pass - wearing the boot gave me some security. Crutches and/or a cane may make it more obvious to others that we are watching our step.

I’m flying to Phoenix next week for Thanksgiving (week 6). This makes me feel better about flying. Thanks for sharing!

I’m impressed you did that long of a flight at week 5. I was just contemplating today my chances of flying in December to visit my folks in California. It would be at the 10 week mark, about a five hour flight. But after reading your post I’m thinking it shouldn’t be a problem. My only concern is switching gates to catch connecting flights. Whether I’m in the boot or not, I won’t be able to move too fast. Did you take your crutches or are you totally crutch free at this point?

I’m still icing at 12 weeks so don’t expect that to end any time soon - LOL! Sounds like your progressing nicely! Looking back at my right foot I got to start working on jumping at week 18 so pretty close to Jeff’s timeline. And I was doing a single leg heel/calf raise at week 18. Not sure what a “full” heel raise is. I stopped writing about them at week 22 so I must have been doing fine with them and just adding more to get stronger. And from now until about the 5 month mark you see progress pretty steadily. At about the 5 month mark the improvements are not so noticeable week to week so you have to focus on month to month improvement.

Thanks Jeff - a jump, that is great news. Looking forward to more progress and will target a jump at week 17 as well. I am icing every day in the evening, the swelling in annoying.

Sounds like ur moving right along. Stay diligent on that PT and you’ll be back before you know it!

I’m at 17 weeks and jumped for the first time today in a while (you would have missed it if you blinked).

Ironically my biggest challenge is distance walking. No issues with the exercises but I start swelling up after a mile. Staying after it though.

Good luck with the rest of your recovery.

Huh. Interesting. I didn’t know that. I guess that makes sense.

LOL Junebug! When I did my first foot I asked my doc why I couldn’t be PWB early like folks with ATR did and he explained it to me. Basically for an ATR the sheath that surrounds the achilles is still intact so it give the achilles a path to follow to grow back together and heal (or at least that’s how I understood what he said). Once the achilles is cut (which is what they have to do for a bone spur surgery) the sheath is also cut so everything has to heal, including the sheath and that means NWB for quite a while.

I can’t help be jealous of your progress Rob. I can’t believe you were PWB after 2 weeks. I’m green with envy!

You might want to check with him to see if you can ride a recumbent bike. My doc won’t let me on a stationary bike until the 3 month mark. He let me start using my shoe on the recumbent at the 10 week mark as long as I made sure I was pushing through the heel and wasn’t flexing it too much. Before that I had to have the boot on and just rest it on the pedal - no pushing. Still the weight of the foot made it MUCH easier than 1 footed pedaling - LOL!

Doc got back to me today and said no more stationary bike, no seated calf raises and no barefoot walking. One more week until the next visit and if all goes I should get clearance to start to transition out of the boot and get back on the bike.

Thanks. I’ve emailed my doc a few days ago through the clinic portal and no reply… agree it is probably too early for attempting to start getting out of the boot. I am strapped back in the boot for now. Tomorrow I’ll try a few 500m session on the rower with the boot on the ground.

And once you are in shoes the rower is a lot easier - LOL! I don’t have the flexibility to strap my left foot in yet but I do put it on the foot rest, a bit higher up so it doesn’t flex as much and I push a bit with it now. I’m doing 3 rounds of 500m with some stretching in between them as my warm up, then I move to weight and abs exercises and end with the recumbent bike for at least 20 minutes. My doc won’t let me on the stationary bike in shoes until the 3 month mark.

You might want to check with your doc about whether you should go barefoot. It all depends on how much atrophy happened in your foot. I can’t go barefoot until month 4 but I was 6 weeks NWB so I had a lot of atrophy. The concern is that if the tendons/muscles aren’t strong enough and if the bone isn’t built back up enough (you lose bone and muscle mass when you are NWB) in your foot you can break things when you walk barefoot. Looks like you were only 2 weeks NWB so you’re probably OK - but it never hurts to check.

Congrats! It is good to make some noticeable progress on the long road of recovery!

Sounds like you have everything covered for your recovery! Good luck and welcome to the club!