May 25th 2010 - 3 Weeks post-op

I had to go in for early morning PT this morning at 7am. Just did some more basic stretches and added in a few very light strengthening exercises. Good bye crutches!!! Got the ok to begin some more weight bearing and could walk as long as I keep my aircast on. I have to walk pretty slow, but anything beats carting around those crutches. I have another PT appointment on the 27th, but probably won't have any new changes until my 4 week visit next week.

here are a couple of pictures. the scabbing has started to come off of the upper part of the incision and is healing up nicely. in the second picture, i'm only putting enough weight on my right leg to flex the calf muscle--or what used to be the calf muscle, anyway...lol.

May 20th, 2010 - Physical Therapy begins

Today I had my first physical therapy appointment. During the appointment, they basically did an evaluation for my range of motion, strength and pain threshold. The PT did some massaging of my achilles, as it had not been moved around since the surgery. There was some scar tissue that had formed, and the massaging of the area breaks down that scar tissue and alleviates some of the stiffness. The massaging was almost painful to a point, but afterwards it felt much better than it had before. Next he had me do some basic exercises--I had to use a belt while sitting up and hold it around my foot, then gently pull and stretch the achilles. I had to hold this for 30 seconds 5 times, with a 5 second break in between. I then had to do the same exercise with my leg bent at a 45 degree angle. Next he had me point my foot as far as I could, then pull it back as far as I could. I had to do this 25 times. Then I had to rotate my foot in as full of a circle as I could 25 times clockwise then 25 times counter-clockwise. The last thing he did was have me lay on my stomach and looped a theraband around a leg of the table and the end of my foot. There was a gentle stretch for 6 minutes. The more relaxed I let my foot get, the more it pulled, and after about 4.5 minutes it became uncomfortable. This was the final exercise of the day.





My therapist wanted to wait another week before beginning any strengthening exercises. My right calf has become very weak, as you can see in this picture.

This picture was taken from an offset angle, so it makes it look worse than it really is, but trust me, it's pretty obvious how much smaller my right calf is than my left.

At the end of the appointment, I was told I could move to some weight bearing, but no more then 25%--basically the weight of my leg. I'm pretty sick of crutching around everywhere at this point, so I can't wait until they tell me I can lose the sticks!!!!!!!

May 17th - 2 weeks post-op - Staples out!!

Today I had my two weeks follow up (13 days) from my surgery on the 4th. I finally got the staples out!! I had 18 staples holding my incision together, and they were removed one at a time. Some were more painful than others, but for the most part it just felt like some pressure and then a slight bee sting. Although having 18 bee stings right in a row was not very pleasant, I felt immediate relief of pressure after they were removed.

The orthopedist said that the healing and swelling both looked very good, and a consultation for physical therapy was scheduled.

Here is the first picture I took after the staples were removed

May 11th 2010 - 1 Week post-op appointment

Today I had a check up with my Ortho to see how things were going. I went to work in the morning, and my appointment was during my lunch. There was good and bad that came out of this appointment. The bad was that my staples were not ready to come out--that has truly been the most uncomfortable part of this whole thing so far. Other bad news was that there was some excessive swelling, most likely due being up and about with the boys the weekend before and not being able to keep it elevated properly while at work. Dr. Leonard suggested that if I could, I should take the rest of the week off of work and really concentrate on doing nothing but letting my leg recover. He explained how much natural energy the body uses while trying to heal something that is damaged and said he felt I was simply doing too much too soon. The good news is that all of my bandages were changed to fresh new ones, and I was able to get out of the fiberglass splint and into a heavier but much more comfortable Aircast boot.

Looks pretty serious but is actually pretty comfortable, much more so than a fiberblass splint wrapped with half a dozen ace bandages!! I was still restricted to put no weight on it and remained on crutches, and unfortunately because the staples had to stay for at least a few more days, I was still unable to take a shower, so one more week of baths for me!!

May 10th 2010 - Back to Work

Today I went back to work for the first time since my injury. I got into the office around 9am and was able to make it through the majority of the day with little pain. I work in an office setting, so most of my day involves sitting at a desk, working on my computer and phone. I have not taken any pain medication for a day and a half now, and I can really start to feel some of the post-op discomfort that was explained to me from day 1. After lunch, there was some noticeable throbbing, most likely from not being able to properly elevate my leg while working. I made it until around 3:30pm at work, and at that point I was just too uncomfortable to stay. I went home to prop my leg back up, and actually felt much better once I was able to do this.

It was at this point when I began to get a little upset with the reality of my situation. I expected to get back to work after a week off and have everything be just fine. It now started to hit me about how limited my activities were going to be for a while, about how long the road to a full recovery was going to be, and it got me pretty frustrated. I've always been an active person, and have been relatively injury free my whole life. To have something like this happen right as the weather is getting warmer and the summer is just around the corner was devastating to think about. All I was focusing on was what I will be missing out on and because this injury is different for everyone, I really had no realistic timeframe to look at to draw any sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

It was this day that I got online and really started looking for info about my injury. I read medical journals, e-zines written by physical therapists about achilles recover, and found a few blogs from people that had experienced this injury first hand. This is where I was able to find some solace and really began to focus on the fact that things were eventually going to be ok. I read blog after blog about people that pushed themselves too hard and ended up having to go back through surgery 9 months to a year later. I read about those that took things slow and were able to make a full recovery within a reasonable time frame. All of these stories of people that had experienced what I was going through was really what picked me back up, gave me some time to think about what kind of goals I wanted to set, and really made me see that this injury was really not the worst thing that have could happened.

May 7th 2010 - Trip to Hershey PA

Several weeks before my injury I had made plans with my parents to head out to Hershey, PA to see my boys. They both had baseball games this weekend and Brendan had a soccer game as well. I certainly wasn't going to let my injury keep me from seeing my boys, so we packed up dad's Tahoe and made the trip out there. As of Friday, I was still taking some of the pain medication, but taking it while driving in the car started to make me a bit queasy, so I tried to reduce the amount I was taking. Still had to take the meds to fall asleep at night, but I was able to tolerate the pain throughout the day for the most part. I crutched and was carted around all weekend, and was able to see both boys play baseball and able to get to Brendan's soccer game as well. Aside from their games and a Sunday trip to Chocolate World (in a wheelchair LOL), we took it pretty easy during my visit. While in the hotel, I was able to unwrap the bandaging, and got my first look at how the wound had been closed up. This is not the most attractive picture in the world!!

Since I was planning to go back to work on Monday, I stopped taking all of my pain meds as of Saturday night, and remained med free all day on Sunday. I was able to keep my leg elevated during the ride back to Ohio, and I was feeling pretty good when I got home late Sunday night and headed to bed.

May 6th 2010 - The first bit of post-op pain

Today was the first day that I began to feel some pain. The neural block typically wears off after the first 24 hours, but I was still pretty numb for a while after that. Slowly I began to get feeling back in my toes, then in my foot, my heel, and now the back of my leg. And I was also trying to slow down on the amount of pain medication I was taking, so I began to feel some slight pain at this point. I switched from Percocet to Vicodin, and was able to keep the pain level tolerable. Sleeping became a little more difficult for me while taking the vicodin. I would fall asleep around 9 or 10, but then wake up around midnight or so. After that, I was basically up every other hour for the rest of the night. As far as my leg was concerned, though, I was doing pretty well. I have not seen the incision or the staples at this point as they are bandaged and re-wrapped in a new fiberglass splint, but I have begun to feel the "pulling" of my skin by the staples. This is not comfortable at all.

May 4th 2010 - Day of Surgery

On Tuesday May 4th, my mother took me to the hospital for my surgery. The surgery was set for 10:30 am, and we needed to be there about an hour and a half early. When I got there just before 9 am, there was a little bit of paperwork that needed to be completed, and then the nurse came out and called my name to come back for the surgery prep. After the nurse had hooked me up on the IV, she went out and got my mom and she was able to hang out with me while I met the anesthesiologist and discussed some of the options during the surgery. I decided to go with the neural block--similar to an epideral that women receive during child birth--where they inject an anesthetic directly into the nerve in my leg. This gives a little more relief from pain, and generally lasts between 8 and 24 hours before wearing off. My Aunt Betse stopped by to see me at one point, and having both her and my mom there made it a little more relaxing. At around 10:00 am, the staff came in and told my mom and aunt that it was time to go, and I was ready to get prepped for the actual surgery.

The last thing I remember before waking up is seeing the nurse working with the IV bag, and some pressure on the back of my leg near my hamstring. I can describe the last thing I remember--which was quite painful--as though they were digging at my hamstring with a spoon. But after a few seconds, I was off in La La land and they were able to perform the surgery.

The next thing I remember was coming to in the recovery area. Mom was there, and it took me a little while to get to my senses. I remember her making a few calls to let people know I was out of surgery and doing fine, but tried to lay back and relax as much as possible. Coming out of the anesthetic was like sobering up--I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous, but they gave me some medication for that and within a half-hour or so I was feeling just fine. Another friend who would be taking me home was there by this time, and mom had to take off to get to work.

The doctor and the anesthesiologist both came by to make sure I was feeling ok, and after a short time I was able to put my clothes back on and was cleared to head home to begin the recovery.

When I got home, I was armed with plenty of food, plenty of drink, plenty of medication and plenty of movies to keep my attention. I also had plenty of popsicles to keep me feeling good! The doctor advised that I should have someone there with me for at least the first 24 hours post-operation. Dad came down in the late afternoon, and then another friend came over to stay with me through the night to make sure I was ok. I was told to take the percocet that had been prescribed to me every 4 hours. The doc said not to wait for the pain to set in to take them, because at that point it would hurt pretty bad. I got plenty of rest and kept my leg elevated for most of the evening, and got a pretty decent night of sleep considering what I had been through earlier that day.

May 3 - Orthopedist Consult

On Thursday (April 29) I was given the name of an Orthopedic firm in the Cincinnati area, Wellington Orthopedics. I called them and was directed towards an Orthopedic Surgeon in Blue Ash, Dr. James Leonard. I set an appointment with Dr. Leonard and met him for the first time today. He examined my injury, discussed the goals that I wanted to accomplish, and we agreed that physically repairing the achilles through surgery was the best option for me. He actually had a time slot the very next day, and we decided to move forward. Aside from my wisdom teeth being taken out, I had never had surgery before, so I was a bit nervous. Dr. Leonard showed me exactly what they would be doing, and laid out a basic timeline for me so I would know what to expect with my recovery. He was very informative and very willing to answer any questions I had about the situation. I would highly recommend him to anyone that would need a similar type of procedure.

I filled out some brief information about my medical history with his assistant, and confirmed the surgery time for 10:30 am the next morning.

April 30th 2010 - The MRI

I had to wait until Friday (2 days later) to have the MRI done. At this point, my leg had been in a fiberglass splint for almost 2 days. When the splint was removed, my lower leg and foot were very stiff. It was somewhat painful even to get my foot into the MRI machine, as they had to bring my foot back close to a 90 degree angle so they could get the best results. The MRI took about an hour, and was much more comfortable than what I had thought it would be. I listened to some country music and even caught a quick nap while the photos were being taken. After the procedure was finished, they gave me a disc with all of the photos on it to take to my Orthopedist on the following Monday (May 3). Of course I loaded the disc into my computer when I got home, which is where the pictures of my achilles on the main page of this blog come from. I had no idea what I was looking at, but when I googled a picture of a healthy achilles tendon, it became pretty clear how bad the damage was.

April 28th 2010 - How I got here

On April 28th, the men's league soccer team that i've played with for the past year or so had two indoor games at Wall 2 Wall sports in Mason, Ohio. I wasn't playing particularly well during the first game and with around 7 minutes to go as I was about to receive the ball, I heard a loud crack and went to the ground. As I waited for the referee to call a foul, I turned around to find no one behind me. At this point, I hadn't felt any serious pain, but knew something was wrong. As I stood up, I felt my first bit of pain. I limped off the field and made it to the bench. I still didn't know what I had done, but had the feeling that my foot was no longer attached to my leg--it felt as if it was just kind of hanging there. As I sat down on the bench, I leaned over, and the first thing I did was feel my left achilles, which was fine. It was quite a shock when I went to feel my right achilles, and there was simply nothing there. At this point it was pretty clear what had happened, and after the game one of my teammates ran me to the emergency room at West Chester Medical Center.

I called a good friend of mine on the way, and she agreed to meet me at the hospital to wait with me and figure out what I should do from there.

When I went in to see the physician, he knew what was wrong right away--no X-rays needed. He felt my left and then my right achilles, recommended a type of splint to the nurse and an MRI to be done the following day to get the full picture of the damage. I left the hospital around midnight with a prescription for some pain meds and a nice new pair of crutches.

I needed to get my prescription filled and some groceries, so we ran to a 24 Walgreens and hit Kroger so I could have some supplies to fill the refrigerator for the next several days that I would be spending at home.

Introduction

So as many of you may know, on April 28th of this year I ruptured my achilles tendon while playing in an indoor soccer game at Wall 2 Wall sports in Mason, Ohio. After being a little upset and maybe even a little depressed about the recovery that lies ahead, I decided to do some research online. I found a few different blogs about similar injuries, and I have to say that it helped my attitude tremendously. I can see the timelines that others went through and the actual progression that they made. I've always been a "goal" person, and seeing what others have done is helping me (with the advice of my physical therapist) develop a plan of action towards recovery. Being as competitive as I am, of course I want to beat the progressions that others made, but I am keeping in mind that too much too soon can lead to devestating set-backs.

Over the next few days, I'll be trying to recall as much as possible from the initial day of the injury through my first day of physical therapy (today), and will continue to blog throughout the process of my recovery.

For friends and family, it will give you an update as to how things are progressing. For those that experience a similar injury, I just hope that it might be able to give you the same motivation that I received when I read the blogs of others.

So look for updates and keep in mind I'll be posting some picutres--the early ones are not for the faint of heart!! (this means you, Norfleet!!)