Day 1, Thursday February 2, 2012
Mine occurred on Thursday Feb 2, 2012, ~7:30pm, in the company gym during a 3vs3 Basketball tournament. Although I feel as if someone ran my leg, after reading various descriptions of people "thought I was kicked" is a common desciption, I suppose it could have "just happened". Although we did a short warm up before our games (it happened in the second game), I think it was a recent lack of activity that probably contributed to the injury.
Although I'm generally active, my main activity is at least 2 ice hockey games a week and I try to use my bike to commute and I enjoy open water swimming (the background is a shot of sunset behind the Golden Gate bridge at the Dolphin Club in San Francisco), I hadn't been doing anything other than hockey and long hours at work for several weeks before the basketball games.
Anyway, a teammate drove me to the closest ER (San Francisco General Hospital). This was perhaps a mistake. It was in a lock down when I got there due to shooting victims being inside which probably slowed things down although in terms of number of people there weren't that many. I pretty much knew I had blown my Achilles, I could feel nothing there when inspecting it at the gym, but I didn't know that much about treatment etc, so I decided to stick out there. Around 4:00am I finally got attention and a 3/4 "splint" was put on and I was sent on my way.
The following day, I tried to find a sports medicine orthopedic surgeon close to my home, in my insurance network (I still prefer Canada's health system at these times), with reasonable "reviews". Doctor choice can be a significant factor based on my own past experience (dislocated collar bone, fractures, gashes, ...) as well as the many Achilles blogs out there. This process is worth a rant on it's own. In the end, I chose a surgeon at a facility close to work (which is relatively far from home) since I figured that visits. physiotherapy etc would likely be more convenient in the long run close to work than home.
Day 5, Monday, February 6, 2012: Meet the Surgeon
So I ended up at UCSF Sports Medicine Center on Monday, February 6, 2012 for the surgeon to inspect my injury. It was a pretty brief inspection and since I hadn't really researched a lot by then I didn't have a lot of questions.
Day 8, Thursday, February 9, 2012: Surgery
Day 9, Friday, February 10, 2012: OMG The Pain!
Heads up... Something I haven't seen mentioned in the other blogs yet. Start scarfing the pain killers at maximum recommended dose ASAP until the "blocker" wears off (approximately 15 hours in my case).
My prescription was only filled out late Thursday afternoon, and I only took the minimum recommended dosage (I'm not a fan of pain killers in general) of the basic pain killer prescribed. That was a big mistake.
Since you might be fuzzy during this time, if you have an iOS device (I assume there are Android apps as well), you might want to use it to remind you of your meds. I downloaded the first free one in an App Store search which happened to be Rxmindme. Simple, and did the job.
When the "blocker" wore off late Friday after spending most of the day out of it, I just had to use the rest room despite the pain. Well one thing that people do mention, which you should also take as a warning, is that standing will produce a pretty focused pain sensation (I don't know exactly what the cause is, sure it must be due to the blood flow but what is it that gets irritated by the blood flow? Swelling of the sutures or what?). Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I basically blacked out from the pain. Hit my head going down, but luckily it wasn't serious (picture was taken a couple days later) and luckily no additional injuries anywhere else.
The general lesson was also that with one gimpy leg, you are very susceptible to other injuries, so err on the safe side in all you do. A lot of people talk about hopping around (I did/do this too) but it's pretty dangerous when you think about how little it would take to make that hop another disaster you don't need.
And remember, when you stand up after the "blocker" wears off, medication or not, you are going to feel pain. That lasted about a week where it was in the "uncomfortable" range of pain. Bearable, but uncomfortable.
Days 10, 11, February 11-12, 2012
Kind of fuzzy because of using the "break-through pain" medication.
I didn't entertain any notion of being able to go back to work this week, so checked out from work.
Day 12, Monday February 13, 2012
Actually woke up feeling pretty good.
Day 13, Tuesday February 14, 2012
Didn't sleep well and woke up feeling lousy.
Last dosage of antibiotics. Also decided to start reducing min dosage of pain killers, thinking it may also be contributing to the lousy feeling, not to mention curious how much pain it was/wasn't actually preventing.
Day 14, Wednesday February 15, 2012
Didn't sleep well and woke up feeling lousy (again).
Took one dose of pain killer to see if it would shake off the now persistent headache (it didn't).
Day 15, Thursday February 16, 2012
No painkillers. Still trying to shake off lousy feeling. Maybe just getting down about current situation.
Leg is already noticeably thinner. I've seen blogs mention using TENS/EMS to help keep the muscles up. Should have started to do leg lifts sooner.
Day 16, Friday February 17, 2012
No meds. Still feeling lousy.
Day 17, Saturday February 18, 2012
No meds. Still feeling lousy.
Day 18, Sunday February 19, 2012
Still feeling lousy in the morning. Decided to see if Advil might help. Seems to help clear up head a bit.
Headache back full force by night, took a couple of Advil hoping for relief during the night.
Day 19, Monday February 20, 2012
Feeling better, finally.
Day 20, Tuesday February 21, 2012
More reading of Achilles blogs, trying to see what to expect in weeks 3-4 of post-op and to try and be prepared with what comes next.
In particular I am very interested in a waterproof/friendly solution (eg VACOCast), if it allows me to get some water activity in sooner rather than later.
Also need to know when the healing site will be ok in the water, in particular the bay water (not the cleanest!-P).
And as you can see, decided to start blogging my experience.
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