A final consult seals my decision with confidence
(2025.11.03-11.09)
Monday: The third week of living with this crippling injury kicked off with (hopefully) my last hospital visit: a return to where I had been initially admitted to the ER, where I originally had the VACOped boot fitted. This time, though, it was for a regular appointment made the week before with one of the resident accident orthopedic specialists – a chance to get another opinion on whether to stick to the non-operative path or opt for surgery after all.
Now, I am very lucky in that I have a good support network: my family is more than willing to go out of their way to help, to drive me places and do whatever’s necessary; on top, I have a good handful of close friends not too far away that are ready to do the same. Nevertheless: I am an independent person and, although willing to take up people on offers of help, in general I’ll only do that when I need to. Emphasis on the word ‘need’. Like, you need oxygen to live. Hence my desire to get to the hospital on my own.
Principally not a problem: there’s a bus that goes from just 200m from my flat all the way (literally!) to the front door of the hospital. Timing was not great, though: I was early and it was late, leaving me standing at the street bus stop for about 20 mins with nowhere to sit – I now carry a mini fold-up camp stool for this kind of situation in my rucksack (which I ALWAYS have with me!); on top of that, the bus zig-zags through a bunch of villages taking 45-50 mins to get somewhere you’d only need 18-20 mins in the car.
Still, it was a comfortable enough journey and definitely doable; gave me time for a coffee in the hospital café when I got there too, so there’s that :)! I was also grateful for one of the ‘accessories’ I’d picked up at a local medical supply store: although it wasn’t actually raining (I’ve been lucky there too, with mostly dry, even mostly sunny weather since the accident!), there were damp leaves everywhere on the floor (‘cos it’s, like, autumn, of course :)!). Pictured below already pulled over the VACOped boot, it has a velcro strap on the front and a pull-tie on the back; on the bottom there are loads of kind of rubber bumps which help it grip … for the upcoming winter here in Bavaria absolutely indispensable!! (https://valife.de/orthesenuberschuh-3.html – 30€)
After a short wait with beautiful pictures like above to look at (actually the local mountains, featuring the church and area I went for my first walking date with my current partner in 2016!), I was ushered in a few minutes early; the specialist I saw was really great … his was the 6th doctor’s opinion I’d heard; notably, he was the first to ‘step me through’ the MRI pictures and explain what was what (as well as doing a thorough exam of my foot/ankle/tendon); on top of that, he answered a long list of ‘engineery’ questions I’d been collecting the last 10 days ^^!
More positive than anything else, though, was his feedback: my Achilles seemed to be coming along nicely – just two weeks and already it’s kinda together again (although naturally super fragile and really thick); I was taking the right kind of approach (the way I took the boot off and put it back on; plenty of gentle walking; VERY gentle and only slight ROM inside and outside of the boot without any stretching of the tendon); listening to my body regarding any hints of pain.
The boot was also definitely the right thing to be in and a non-operative treatment was what he would recommend … in fact he went as far as to say he would explicitly discourage opting for an operation with the rupture as high up as mine (muscle/tendon junction, about 9cm up from the heel, as opposed to in the middle of the tendon). He also confirmed an 6-8 week treatment plan (10-12 weeks from injury) using the VACOped ROM (Range Of Motion) feature, which was the first time I’d had specific treatment recommendations applicable to this boot. And I was right to be partially loading the foot – the clinic in Munich had said 10kg from day one onwards, ramping up slowly over 4-6 weeks with pain being the main measure, he agreed with this (this is, of course, my case – yours will most likely be different so please don’t take this as a recommendation for you!).
The trip home via train was longer and harder work than the bus (bus scheduling is not great) but all doable; the weather was still holding out, almost permanently dry and sunny since I ruptured; on the way back home from the train station there are several benches, also a small park, so plenty of opportunities to sit down for a few minutes … by doing this I break up the 1.7km walk into 3 sections of around 600m with 2 x 5min sit-down breaks. Means that what took barely 10 mins previously now takes about 40-50 mins … but who cares? Main thing is looking after myself and part of that is fresh air, moderate movement and rest when I need it.
The evening saw the scheduled call with the Achilles tendon sports rehab specialist in the US. That was a positive first contact with an email follow-up that came swiftly covering what we’d talked about, including the costs / options – was a good chance to ask the first few questions and so on. Still a little undecided … it’s not cheap, buuut on the other hand, I’d spent more on an iPhone in the past and this was about getting my body working again as well as possible, so in that sense, for me personally, a bit of a no-brainer; still, no guarantee that a) the guy’s support was really going to help, and b) … yeah, just that, no guarantees, full stop. However, I was pretty sure I was just going to ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at this shitty injury, to the best of my abilities. Had time to think it over a while – his suggestion was to get through the ‘on-boarding’ at the end of the fourth week.
After the call, my trawling of Reddit carried on, kinda relentlessly … still a bit haphazard, need to find a reasonable way of securing some links to some of the more helpful / supportive / useful posts. ALSO need to make sure it doesn’t dominate my life like my web ‘research’ during the early months of the COVID pandemic.
Tuesday: the day of my regular morning boulder session. After a coffee together, my partner drove me over to the climbing gym … I’d decided it was a good opportunity for what was otherwise becoming somewhat scant (certainly reduced) social contact; I also wanted to get some photos of my ‘nemesis’ boulder before it was removed; I’m also a sucker for a coffee and ‘butterbreze’ (Bavarian pretzel sliced open with butter). It was REALLY nice to spend some time there, talking to my ‘boulder buddies’, even if it meant crawling around on the boulder hall floor from one boulder to the other; everyone helpful, supportive and willing to give me a lift to the local train station afterwards … much the same as your health, money simply can’t buy good friends and a supportive, loving family. I feel blessed. Plus the pics on the ‘Day Zero’ page were taken on this day.
Wednesday: off to work via train again – no issues, everyone willing to drive me whenever necessary; still have to limit the time there as I have no chance to lie down to put my foot up high … elevating on a stool is better than nothing, but still not the same as being at home and having access to my bed, able to even lie down – no afternoon napping this week, but just a 15 min lie down is REALLY relieving!
Back home later that day, after handling the usual remote meetings, I ummed and ahhed yet again about the remote physio Achilles rehab specialist in the US; I went through various further recommendations on the web and decided to bite the bullet. Money transferred; WhatsApp exchange with the Achilles rehab specialist was good; into the planning phase we go!
Thursday morning saw a visit to the closest physio practice to set up appointments. The assistant at the front desk was REALLY helpful and managed to conjure up short notice sessions for both lymph drainage as well as physio (normally, they bundle these, but I was happy to take individual sessions for the first couple of weeks as it was early days anyway – ‘serious’ physio wasn’t due to start until week 5, coinciding with the onboarding session that the US Achilles rehab guy scheduled).
In fact, the first lymph drainage session was later that day already! Had the time to do a ‘full-on’ 45min shower session (first the rest of me, then the bad foot in a kind of second phase … getting the hang of it but it takes ages being safe!); after that and back to the safety of my bed, I took the second lot of pictures of my legs (click to enlarge) – swelling and bruising was way down, though not gone; calf shrinkage / deformation visible but not tooo bad … but just look how THICK that ‘repaired’ tendon is (can’t feel any more gap) … at least 3 times as thick as the good one:
The lymph drainage session was super relaxing, I got an excellent therapist – she said there wasn’t much swelling to deal with anyway; I had been a little anxious about my unprotected foot but she was really professional, took care to avoid any pain on my side.
Friday through Sunday saw more Redditing, coffee with my partner, chicken soup with my kids at home; also made another trip to the bouldering hall on Sunday afternoon (this time with my friend who had been with me on the day of the accident) where I took vids of him climbing for the first time … THAT can be helpful, I knew anyway, but we’d always been too busy just bouldering … so, another positive thing came of my injury as the vids helped him see his bouldering from another perspective – he’s come a long way, like me, but still, watching a vid of oneself is a great way to isolate and optimise certain moves; the customary beer after bouldering including discussion was balsam for my soul … and the lemon chicken soup he had at my place after driving me home was balsam for his tummy ^^!
Oh yes … walking / going up stairs on crutches / in a 30 degree fixed VACOped boot – you have to be careful on the stairs … but at the end of the day, normal stair walking is also a dynamic movement, just one you’ve been doing for decades; take it slow and easy, deliberate placement of the crutches and conscious dynamic movement and you’ll be fine (particularly if you do it next to the handrail … just in case!); I also revisited the park bench from last weekend to take another short video of me simply walking … figure it may well be interesting to see that progression over the next weeks / months (years?).
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