Things I wish I’d known pre and post op

• First and foremost – This thing! http://iwalk-free.com/crutch-testimonials/ Only $149 and your insurance may cover it anyway?? Shut up and take my money!! If there was one thing I could choose to redo about my recovery, this is it. I would have had this, and would have saved myself scary moments on the stairs and transitioning from wet parking lots to slick floors. I did a lot of hopping because I hated the crutches so much. Had a lot of close calls when I was supposed to be completely non weight bearing, where I almost landed on my Boot Foot. The shoulder pain from the crutches. Oh God, the shoulder pain. Sometimes it would keep me up at night and was definitely worse, at times, than the post op pain. If I ever find myself non weight bearing again, I will have this.
• A frozen bottle of water will be your best friend for the first few weeks of full weight bearing. The bottom of your heel will feel painful and even crunchy your first few weeks of full weight bearing. You will think to yourself, “What the hell have I done? I had surgery to get rid of heel pain!” Thing is, it’s a totally normal response of the fascia to transitioning back to full weight bearing. Roll the painful areas on the bottom of your foot on that frozen tube of bliss for as long and as forcefully as you can stand to. Don’t stop til the painful areas are numbed. Repeat as often as necessary.
• You will need a backless shoe for around the house for awhile. Some recommend Crocs; I personally believe those holes in Crocs are where your  dignity escapes. I had a pair of Merrell clogs that were a godsend, and bonus – I’m not embarrassed to wear them out in public now, so $80 well spent.
• As for the long term outlook for your shoe collection – don’t make any hasty decisions. Seriously. Give it a year. Shoes that bother your incision area at 15 weeks out may not bother the area at 6 months out, or 11 months out. I hastily re-homed a pair of Merrell low cut hikers, and I’m regretting it, because other shoes I thought I’d never be able to wear again, feel fine now.
• Physical Therapy is at least 50% of the equation for recovery. Don’t skip it! Even if you don’t go 3x/week, a good physio will keep you progressing through range of motion and strengthening. Those were two very distinct phases in my recovery – both equally important. You won’t get to strengthening until you get more r.o.m. and you won’t get back to normal gait and activities without strengthening.
• Exactly a year ago today, I had my pre-op xrays and scheduled my surgery. I can’t believe a year went by so quickly. If you’re worried about the recovery time, read that previous sentence again. Recovery time truly is just a blip in the grand scheme, though when you’re in the middle of it, it feels like forever.

Life isn’t perfect

I’m still sore at the end of some days. That is what happens when you go from PT 3 days a week to back to your part desk jockey/part climbing/jumping/stepping/carrying/unpredictable movements job. I don’t stretch nearly as much as I should, and I can really tell when I’ve been neglectful in that area. 

I think, I have found that the key is, the more active I am today, the more normal I will feel tomorrow. It’s a tough concept for an instant-gratification kinda girl like me to wrap her mind around. When the alarm goes off at 5:30am for my pre-work walk, the first thing I want to do is hit snooze until I don’t have enough time to get a walk in. That 30 minutes of sleep costs me dearly in terms of flexibility and pain, though. 

If I want to progress to my former athletic self, however, it’s a concept I need to get behind asap. 

14 weeks out, a big milestone!

I did a heel raise yesterday in PT! Actually, I did a couple 

We had been working on it by having me go up on both toes, then taking the strong foot off the ground and holding the raise with the op foot and controlling the descent. I was able, yesterday, to get the heel off the ground by itself. Now, compared to the strong side it was a pretty pitiful heel raise, but it was off the ground at least a couple inches with no help from the other side.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in PT. I know I am going next week, and he talked about addressing some of the awkward landings I will likely encounter functionally when I get back to work. That is why I trust this guy so much. He takes into account what you’ll need to actually do functionally day to day, and step by step he incorporates stuff to strengthen and prepare you for just that.

The area that I was feeling the “zings” on both sides? The PT massaged them and it definitely felt better and freer for me after that, even though the massage alternately burned and stung. He said the tissue felt like bone, and he was huffing and puffing after doing the massage. It is all soft tissue area, so “feels like bone” was kind of ominous to hear. How arthritic is this ankle going to be? I have had a couple of bad sprains to that ankle, one that healed badly a long time ago, and another recently, that I was smart and did PT immediately after. I massaged the areas myself the next couple of nights before bed. I felt distinct crunching under my fingers in small (fingertip size) areas of the massage. I couldn’t locate the crunch the next time I massaged, and my ankle feels freer than it has in months. My PT said it was quite possibly old adhesions from prior sprains, plus the period of immobility in the boot. It’s not crunching anymore when I massage it, so it must have busted something loose!

 

In 5 days I go back to the OS for xrays and followup, and I’m hoping to hear the magic words – back to work!

Noncompliant and overdoing it

Long day full of errands yesterday. Pet stores, grocery store, lunch. This was followed by the obvious putting away of everything, cooking and consuming of dinner,  and bonus activity of cleaning off an icy, mildewed kayak for a Craigslist buyer; then meeting said buyer, hoping he wasn’t a murderer, and sending him on his way with a kayak that dwarfed his Yaris. I wondered if there was still a kayak on that Yaris when he got home, as I drifted off to fitful sleep.

I thought it was kind of funny at first, how much pain medication I went home with after surgery. I’m starting to now wonder if it was intended for crutch related shoulder pain. Maybe it’s for throb I get lying in bed, when my hips wonder why they’re finally on the same plane of motion and seize up in protest. 

Related: I feel like I need to do something active/productive off my feet. I want to swim or maybe get a buoyancy belt and do some aqua jogging at the gym pool. I also feel like being able to use our hot tub would do wonders for my aches and therefore my sleep, but still haven’t figured out how I’d get in or out without Das Boot. 

3 Week Follow Up

Some good news and some news that’s… meh. 

•  

Good news: I CAN TAKE THE BOOT OFF TO SLEEP. Praise Jeebus. Healing well. 

News that’s…meh: only minimal weight bearing. I still have to use two crutches. I can put my foot down and sort of walk on my toe (boot on), using two crutches. No pushing off on surgery foot. No word on PT. Next follow up is in six weeks. 

Not as much as I was hoping for. Was hoping to be a little more ambulatory. But, I will be happy to be be free of Das Boot for sleeping. I guess I’ll take what I can get. 

Animation of Procedure

Very cool. I was looking up the brand of anchors used and found this animation of my procedure. 

https://m.arthrex.com/resources/animation/sjjdqfkEEeCRTQBQVoRHOw/achilles-speedbridge

Day 11 Post Op

Another milestone or two.

Got out of the house yesterday to go to work for a couple hours and push some paper. Nice to be 1) out of the house and 2) useful. 

That brings us to milestone 2: complete mastery of the steps, both down and up. First couple times dealing with the steps I resorted to the butt scoot method. Down or up. Just wasn’t strong enough or sure enough on the crutches. Yesterday, made it down, all the way downstairs, on the crutches. Handily, I might add. And when we came back, I crutched all the way upstairs from the garage. Mightily, I might add. 

Some people have to get their Sea Legs when they swing their legs out of bed. I have to get my Crutch Arms.  It’s kind of a shock first thing in the am when you’re feeling a little weak and sore and Beandryl hungover (still taking that to fall asleep; nothing works better). 

So life is looking up and I’m getting little glimpses of the world outside my living room. Just enough to keep from going crazy. I’m getting quite adept at doing the entire shower/dressing change/dressing thing on my own.  My husband is still a rockstar and my hero, but I’m happy to be a little more independent every day. A neighbor is very kindly bringing us dinner tomorrow. It will be nice to give him a little break. 

Healing is going well. Still can’t really see incision. They were not messing around when they Sharpie’d me up before surgery. Pain is occasional and nothing near what I’d experience after a full day of activity pre surgery. I was a little worried after reading some accounts of intractable post surgical pain but that has not been my experience. I’ll get back to you on that when I’m allowed to bear weight.