Feb
5
40 Weeks. Been awhile!
February 5, 2010 | |
Hi. So I’ve very obviously neglected this site as my progress increased to a point where I was basically 100% functional again. Let’s to a little recap. It’s been about 6 months since my last post. And I’m about 3 months shy of my 1 year anniversary of my rupture. What’s happened since?
Well, I worked pretty extensively with the more sports-oriented trainer I mentioned, and saw my surgeon who cleared me and told me I was good to go and I could continue to see my PT or not. It was my choice. That was probably at around the 15 week mark.
I encountered a bit of an insurance f-up and I wasn’t able to continue PT anyway, so I had to stop regardless of whether I wanted to. In the intervening months, my gait has gotten stronger, and I have now fully transitioned back into normal shoes (even stiff dress shoes) and my scar is healing nicely. it’s still quite purple in parts, but I’m told it takes a long time for these things to fade, and to be frank, I’m not as nice to it as I should be.
When it comes to flexibility, my ruptured tendon is actually more pliable in some ways than my uninjured one, however given the way my ATR was repaired, there is an issue with the very top range of my plantarflexion. Whilst standing on the toes of my injured foot, I can’t really extent my foot all the way to the top of my range. When I don’t have any weight on it, there’s no problem. I think it’s a combination of strength and the way my repair was done that’s making this happen.
I still need to build my left calf up a bit. I have very bulky, compact calf muscles (which my surgeon told me is part fo what contributed to this injury) and my right calf is still more developed than my left. I am working with a personal trainer to both drop some of the weight I gained while I was injured and haven’t really been able to lose, as well as isolate my left calf and try to regain as much of the strength as I can.
I still haven’t been back on the court yet, but I think I’ll be ready for that in about a month or so when I drop some poundage and reduce the load on my lower body.
What’s funny is looking back on the whole ordeal, now that I’m basically out of it, I hardly even remember it all. I know I had one miserable summer on crutches, but luckily enough I was so busy with work (I work on political campaigns) that I associate that time more with the stress of the campaign than with the stress of being injured. I vividly remember hurting myself, and the ensuing ordeal of finding a surgeon and dealing with the hospital and all that, but the short term recovery, the first 10 weeks or so, is completely a blur.
If there’s one thing I can recommend, it’s just keep yourself busy. The time will go faster and you won’t be able to dwell on your injury nearly as much. That, and get a good PT who understands your goals and everything you want to be able to do once you’re back on your feet.
Also, if you’re in NYC and you mess up your achilles, go see Dr. Joseph Fetto at NYU. He is the greatest orthopedic surgeon EVER.
Comments
2 Comments so far
Thanks for the post. It’s good to know the time will come when I hardly even remember all this. It’s already fading…
Ziffy, I’m guessing that your AT has healed a smidge longer than the other one, and that’s what’s limiting your max heel raise. Don’t forget that there are 1 or 2 other little tendons that can point-plantarflex an unweighted toe — all of us could point our toes in the air right after we tore our ATs, we just couldn’t push hard, like heel raises.
With luck, that fact won’t hinder anything you want or need to do. After my first ATR finally finished healing post-op 8 years ago, it was a smidge SHORTer than it used to be. Great heal lifts, but I couldn’t plant that foot as far from the wall (knee touching the wall) as the other one.
It’s new, it’s different, it’s not “factory specs”, but it hasn’t slowed me down a bit in any of the many sport activities I do. With luck, you’ll have the same experience. (Or with luck, I’m wrong!)
The little irony for me now — after I tore the OTHER AT playing volleyball 8 years later — is that my smidge-short repaired AT is now the one I’m comparing the “new” one to!
Most people with good ATs don’t bother doing much measurement of these things — and they don’t obsess about their heel raises, either!