7/8 - Re-rupture Scare

- July 08, 2020

Yesterday, only hours after posting my previous post, I got out of bed for the first time that day, other than going to the bathroom. My mom made me some lunch which I ate at the table with my foot propped up on a chair. When I was done, I used my rolling scooter to head back to the bedroom to lay down again for the rest of the day, but I stopped at the pantry and instinctively reached up to put something back on a high shelf, returning my weight to the roller but missing it and... landing smack on the ball of my injured foot, bearing full weight on it. I collapsed on the ground crying, not out of pain, but out of concern that I re-ruptured the tendon. Luckily my husband was there within seconds, lifting me up into the wheelchair and brought me back to my bed. While I had felt no pain, heard no pop, and was otherwise fine, I was terrified that I had done more damage and convinced I'd need surgery again, if only because that's how this whole experience has been trending since the initial injury back in May that "required stitches only."

The irony is that I had been up at 5am yesterday morning unable to fall back asleep, so I had been reading on some achilles blogs and had stumbled upon stories of re-rupture. It was reading these stories that really got me to think I do, in fact, need to slow down a bit and not be out and about so much in this first week. Hence why, for the first time since I'd stopped taking the meds, I had decided proactively that I wanted to spend most of the day in bed, avoiding possibility of injury. But of course, it's on the day where I actually do the LEAST activity where I fall directly on the injury. Go figure.

At any rate, I had already been scheduled for my 1 week post-op visit with the surgeon today at 3pm originally. However, I called and they moved my appointment to 9am this morning instead, to address the fall more quickly in case anything needed to be done.

GOOD NEWS. The surgeon feels confident I didn't re-rupture. He took the splint off, which he was going to do at this visit anyway, and took a look at it. He said there is no swelling and bruising, and given that I haven't even had to take a Tylenol because I've had no pain, he thinks I'm fine. He said the splint, which covered the top of my leg and the bottom of my leg, with room for swelling on the sides, really does offer a good layer of protection. In fact, he said my leg looks great given the surgery was only a week ago. It's atrophied already, which he said is normal given its lack of mobility over the past week, but otherwise, there was very minimal swelling, no infection, and the stitches look pretty good. There was only one stitch at the top that still had a small drop of blood so he is leaving them in, and he re-splinted my leg, this time with only a bottom splint. I go back next week to get the stitches out and at that point, I'll get a full cast for the leg, which he said I'll be in for 2-3 weeks. Once I'm in the cast, he said I can be slightly more mobile, but still no weight-bearing.

As for next steps, once the cast comes off, he'll fit me for a boot, which I'll likely be in for 2, maybe even 3 months. I'll be doing low weight-bearing then, and starting PT at some point thereafter while I'm still in the boot. We're not looking at being back in a regular shoe again until end of October/end of November at the earliest.

Feeling super grateful for my good luck on not re-rupturing, and keeping it in mind as a cautionary reminder to really take it easy these first few weeks!