Oh Snap!

Hello there, blog.  Has it been four and a half years since I’ve visited you?  Hard to believe it’s been that long!  Perhaps it’s time to add something new to you.  Plenty of Life has passed under the bridge since we last talked, much of which would have made great fodder for blog entries, so where to begin?  I think I know where.

The road to this story really begins back in 2008 (maybe it was 2009…hell, I don’t remember exactly, parenthood has taken its toll on my memory) when my daughter started taking taekwondo classes.  By the end of 2011, after a few years worth of classes, discipline, and testing, she stood on the verge of earning her first degree black belt.  It was also around that time it occurred to me that, other than the dog, I was the only male member of the household; and of the two females, one was about her earn a black belt.  Not wanting to be totally defenseless, I decided to begin taking taekwondo classes at the same dojo my daughter attended starting in January 2012.

With the new year came the start of my classes.  That first evening I got set up with my dobok, the uniform worn by those participating in Korean martial arts.  It seemed a little big on me, but either it would shrink or I would grow – it was all good.  With the uniform came the white belt that all new students wear.  That first night was a harsh reminder of just how out of shape I was as just the stretches and other warm up activities came close to killing me.  But I somehow I managed to survive that class, along with the next handful of classes.

January 14, 2012 was a Saturday, and a pretty one at that.  Although it was cold outside, the sun was out and the sky was clear – an absolutely gorgeous winter’s day.  I threw on a pair of running shorts and a blue Under Armour shirt, grabbed my dobok, and headed off for class that morning.  Following the usual warm ups, the class took a brief water break before starting on our first activity, one that is intended to help with your sparring technique, especially your footwork.  It involved the heavy bag, which hangs near the middle of the classroom, swinging back and forth.  The object was to move forward as the bag swung backwards, and then back pedal as the bag came forward, all the while getting as close as you could to the bag without it making contact.  Easy enough.  My turn in line finally came, and I was ready to go.  Forward…back…forward…back…forward…ba….

The sound.  It’s the sound that I remember most.  More than three years later it’s still a memory that makes me cringe each and every time.  I’ve been told the injury I had just experienced is a painful one, but it’s the sound that I recall most.  It was as if a large, half inch wide rubber band had just broken, and the sound echoed off the classroom walls.  Immediately my right leg collapsed under my weight and I landed on the padded floor.  I looked up at my classmates behind me, wondering who had just hit me in the back of my leg, because that’s exactly what it felt like.  The shocked looks on their faces told me instantly that nobody had hit me – something more serious had happened.

Now seated on the floor I grabbed my right ankle, and instinctively I knew what had just happened.  The back of my ankle, which is normally pretty firm when the Achilles tendon is intact, was very pliable – the tendon was not there. “Shit,” I thought, “the tendon’s ruptured.”  My next thought was my wife was going to kill me in spite of what self-defense techniques I had managed to learn to that point.  In THE most boned-headed decision I’ve ever made, I had decided a couple of months prior to drop my health insurance for a year.  I was in good health, what prescriptions I did take were generic and cheap…ditch the insurance for a year, use the extra money to catch up on some bills…what could go wrong?

A couple of the black belts in class helped me get to a chair just outside the classroom, and one of the owners/instructors of the dojo gave me a bag of ice.  I called my wife to let her know I had hurt myself in class and asked if she could stop by with an Ace bandage to wrap my ankle.  When she arrived there was a brief discussion of my insurance situation.  Fortunately she didn’t kill me, but if looks could kill I’d be feeding the tree right now.  A visit to the orthopedist confirmed the Achilles rupture.  The tear was complete, so there was no way things would improve without surgery.  When you’re without insurance, that’s exactly what you want to hear.  For weeks I walked about wearing an air cast boot on my leg while I tried to figure out how to creatively finance the surgery.  Luckily my wife and I had enough in savings to cover the expense and then some, but I didn’t want to take that much money out of our account due to my stupidity.  In the end we figured things out and I called to get my surgery scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, March 6.

In the interim there were many lessons to be learned about how much of a role your Achilles plays in your everyday life and you don’t even realize it.  Without it, lifting up on your toes is all but impossible, as is walking normally, running, even driving a car is tricky because you cannot push on the accelerator with your toes – you push down on the pedal using your whole leg.  Almost all of the strength in your lower leg comes from your Achilles connecting your foot to your calf muscle.  Found that out the hard way.

For whatever reason I didn’t sleep all that well the evening of March 5, but I did manage to fall asleep on the couch for a couple of hours.  The orthopedic clinic I went to has a separate surgical center building, and that’s where I had my procedure performed.  Once back in the pre-op waiting room I got ready for my very first cut-me-open surgery.  Oh, sure, I had my tonsils taken out back at the beginning of 1979, but this was something completely different.  I sat on the gurney, looking at my leg, wondering what the scar would look like, and paying attention to the dimple on the back of my ankle caused by the tendon not being there to provide structure and support.  A few nurses came in and out of the room, one asked how I was doing.  “A little nervous,” I replied.  As if she anticipated that, she said, “I’m about to give you something for that.”

Shortly after that my memory becomes a little fuzzy.  I do remember the anesthesiologist coming in to give me a nerve block in my right hamstring.  It was a strange sensation when he located the correct nerve as my lower leg started twitching.  Not long after that it was showtime, and I was rolled to the OR.  Before the anesthesia was injected into my IV, I offered to slide from the gurney to the table to make it a little easier on the nursing staff.  For an Achilles repair you lie face down on the table so the surgeon can easily access the back of your leg.  But they said it was okay, they would move me to the table once I was out.  So instead I thanked them for fixing me about the time the anesthesia was administered by IV.  The anesthesia really made my hand ache, and the last thing I said before fading to black was, “Wow, that’s really uncomfortable.”

I regained consciousness as a nurse was getting me dressed to go home.  Normally being in a bed, in your underwear, next to a pretty woman, is a good thing.  I can’t say that in this instance.  My leg was elevated and in a soft cast from the knee down.  Basically a soft cast is a crap load of cotton and gauze wrapped around your leg, surrounded by an Ace wrap bandage. I kinda-sorta remember my wife telling me that the doctor had to make a longer incision than usual to fix the tendon.  But it wasn’t until two weeks later at my first follow up appointment that I found out just how far he had to cut.  At that visit my soft cast was cut off before they put me in the hard cast I would wear for the next six weeks.  Of course I had to look at my leg, and was dumbfounded to see that the incision went from my heel to mid-calf, nearly a foot long trail of sutures and staples.  That was when I first gave a name to my new soon-to-be-scar: Frankenankle.  I’ll spare you the picture I took…or should I?

The hard cast came off at the end of April, 2012, and the staples and sutures were removed (a combined total of 34 of them).  It was very surprising to see how much my calf muscle had atrophied after only a couple of months in a cast.  I didn’t have a lot of extra money for physical therapy but in the sessions I did have, they showed me exercises to help rehab the ankle and bring the strength back.  The one saving grace is that my right leg is the stronger of the two, so once the tendon was reattached there was some strength (albeit only a little) available to work with.  Of course there were follow up visits with the orthopedist (the doctor liked the Frankenankle nickname), but generally the remainder of 2012 was spent doing rehab exercises, swimming, and walking (lots of walking).

I made my return to taekwondo at the end of March, 2013, almost fifteen months after my injury.  As of this writing I'm not too far away from being a black belt candidate myself.  Most white belts move onto to their yellow belts within three months; I like to joke that I wanted to spend as much time as a white belt as possible.  I wince now whenever I hear of someone injuring their Achilles as I know what they’re in for in terms of repair and rehab, and it’s a tough experience to go through.  And as today is the third anniversary of the surgery to repair the tendon, a Happy Birthday to Frankenankle!!

Oh, and that Under Armour shirt I was wearing the day of my injury? Haven't worn it since.  Superstitious?  Oh yeah, very much so.