The local PT enjoys bouldering / first steps on the mat
(2025.11.10-11.16)
Monday: My first day of ‘real’ physiotherapy … and it turns out, the PT is also a boulderer 🧗♂️ 🙏 ! I was a little apprehensive, gotta admit … age 55, never had physio before, so didn’t really know what to expect, even feared it might be painful, scary, dot dot dot 😬 . It was really good, though – more of a ‘holistic’ session than the foot / ankle / leg session I had expected: he looked at and corrected / massaged out the ‘lopsided’ tension in my body that just 3 weeks of crutches (and to some degree incorrectly adjusted ones!) had introduced to the ‘movement chain’ down my right side: neck, back, arm, hip, foot … everything was just trying to compensate for the asymmetry that the injury and crutches had introduced to my life! High on my list of appreciated points: no pain plus relief from tension! I am now looking forward to both of the next sessions (lymph drainage and physio) in the next few days – result 🙌 !
The PT also made a few recommendations / suggestions: 2-3km of walking a day was fine but also enough (so will be happy with 3k steps, but will also not worry about 5k or so when spread across the day with rest stops, depending upon the demands of the day – basically: gonna carry on listening to my body … these are gentle slow steps); cardio on an ergometer as of about week 6 was early enough (fine by me – find it boring as shit, if I’m honest 😁 … but yeah, I know it’s going to be necessary, same as all the other workouts 🙈); laptop work to be done in various positions (🫡), not just sitting on a stool but also standing, sitting on an inflatable ball stool or similar; regular feet up periods, kinda the higher the better; height-adjust the crutches (also spot on I discovered, after over a week on 2cm too high – felt way better to ‘come down’ a bit); gentle movement out of the boot also ok, listen to ‘physical feedback’ – “as a boulderer, I’m sure you’re in touch with your body”. I feel like I made a good choice wrt physio practice and then on top lucked out on the therapist 🤞 !
Milestone: Walking with just one crutch, I was finally able to carry a cup of coffee from the kitchen to my work desk in the bedroom.
Tuesday: A return to the ‘scene of the crime’ again, like last week – it is such a positive experience keeping to my regular Tuesday morning bouldering group; it also seems to make sense to try and keep as much of the sport schedule rhythm going as possible: although I have no illusions about getting back to bouldering soon (I expect absolute minimum 9 months before I even start on ‘baby’ routes), I do expect (HOPE!) to start some climbing of easy routes (with the shoe initially for protection, if possible / sensible) maybe after 6 months; in the meantime, I’ll settle for the social side of things but either way, that time slot in my calendar stays the same and booked!
In fact, it’s not actually just the social side of things anyway: after having taken a small handful of individual steps without crutches at the weekend, I figured it was a fitting and protected place to try the first few steps put together. For the very first try I asked one of my ‘boulder buddies’ to stay close, provide a hand ready to be grabbed if necessary … but it went fine without that; a while later, after relaxing on the mat and watching the others climb, and chatting a bit, I decided I’d try a few more and get it on camera for this journal – far from a perfect gait, it was nevertheless a great feeling to take those few steps (click for video).
What was also interesting was bumping into my neighbour in the same appartment block: she actually works at Oped, just up the road from me at their headquarters. Not only do they have open days about every 3 months, but who knows, maybe I’ll get an intro to and a chance to talk with one or two of the R&D people – for me as an engineer (and now as a patient too!) that would be simply AWESOME! Let’s see …
Milestone: My First 15 steps without crutches (VACOped still set to fixed 30 degrees plus ‘wedge’ sole).
Wednesday: Currently my one ‘present’ work day at the office. I was up shortly after 5:30am – my 15yr old has decided to start taking the 6:35am train to school, rather than the 7:11am … too many delays, he said, teachers are not crazy about late starts, especially problematic if he has a test in the first hour – can well understand, feel for him, and as I’ve said before: MEGA proud of him and the independence he’s developed, how he’s turned about his school the last 9 months. Anyway, since he seems to really appreciate me getting up with him, making him a sandwich for school, this kind of defines the active start to the day.
Once he’d left, got the dishwasher loaded (down to one crutch most of the time in the apartment really helps me clear stuff up) and cleaned up, logged into Teams at work, checked emails – nothing burning (any worse than yesterday at least 😅 🙏) so packed up my laptop and double-crutched over to my partner’s place. Although I don’t always really have time for a relaxed coffee before being chauffured to the train station, the few hundred metres first thing, particularly if the weather’s crisp but good, make a good easy warmup start without time pressure to the day; as always: concentration on the stairs (both my partner and I live on the 2nd floor with no lift) – so long as I concentrate, all is good, but I do NOT want to be tumbling backwards down the stairs on the best of days, and sure as shootin’ not in my current condition.
The train journey gives me some time to read, reflect, look at the window, occasionally talk to someone (although these days, it’s more of an exception to find a non-smombie without headphones) … the number of things you can do with that approx. 30 mins (as opposed to the same time in a car) is actually pretty cool; the German trains I use are clean, comfortable, plenty of space, for 58€ a month for the ‘Deutschland Ticket’ a bargain, I find – yes, there are frequently at least small delays, but not a problem for me.
The customary coffee and a small bite to eat (banana and apple from home already eaten) in a friendly little bakery close to the station is another enjoyable daily ritual; my daughter picked me up, mostly because I needed some stuff from the office before going to a supplier to go over a small re-work job to a handful of legacy products they had in stock.
A short double-crutch to the main office in the sun; work was fine – good to get the social contact, again, but on top of that, despite the Corona pandemic and the much improved remote-working possibilities, there’s just no replacement for face-to-face work, discussing problems, ideas, finding solutions as a small group; on top of that, my work does involve hands-on stuff in a workshop, 3D printer room or electronics lab.
Main priority on a Wednesday is to make sure I get in some 1:1 time with as many colleagues as possible, specifically my team. And today, one of my team, a lovely lady I’ve known for well over 15 years (in fact, I trained her on the job after she finished school and started at our previous employer), offered to bring in a reclining chair so I could take occasional lie-downs at the office – just 5 mins here or there makes all the difference to avoid unnecessary swelling of the foot. Was a really nice idea!
Accepted another offer of help after that: a drive home from my daughter – it’s only about 700m from the station to the office at that end, plus 1.7km at the other to walk home, with chances to sit down, but everyone seems worried that I’m overdoing it (or going to overdo it at any moment 😅). Plus: love working with my daughter in my team and time spent together is one of my most valued aspects of my life … so I guess letting myself get chauffured occasionally ain’t gonna kill me ^^!
Had an exchange of messages with the Achilles specialist in the states – just me sending a sizeable update, encouraging responses from him … the ‘on-boarding’ or official start is next week, when the first 4 weeks are behind me!
Thursday: After flaking out early the day before, I woke up in the middle of the night (1am) – no pain, no idea why I woke, but getting back to sleep was a non-starter. Thoughts revolve around the injury … not so much brooding, rather pondering, wanting to read up more, gather infos. Whilst I tended at the beginning to read through studies, this has wandered to more of trying to find people on the Reddit sub \AchillesRupture treading as similar a path as mine, but weeks or months ahead of me, to see about experiences, tips, anything that might help being pro-active – no matter the amount of support, your injury is exactly that (yours!) and I think you have to ‘own it’ … if it’s important to you to get back to life as functional as possible, to enjoy things that are important to you, you have to be pro-active as best you can and with as much support as you can muster.
Part of ‘my previous life’ which I am determined to win back: running. The picture on the left was taken on a crisp, cold but beautifully sunny day (currently being used as an uplifting lock-screen pic on my iPhone) … and in contrast to many ‘athletes’ my running experience is not about striving for new ‘personal best times’, rather it is about developing, preserving that life skill (of running on two feet) that opens up the world, bringing such experiences into your life, widening your horizon, extending the distances you go on foot.
For example, when in a foreign town, going for a run has found me going through beautiful and/or fascinating areas, past lakes, up and down hills, through forests, across the Golden Gate Bridge (!) … so many life-enriching experiences which so many people don’t have, don’t seem to want or even know they could and should want; those people who, having found out my injury came from doing sport, then tell me, “Yeah, sport’s a killer, right?!” (had this phrase thrown at me again this evening by a 40kg overweight older person who waddles down the street although probably not much over 60).
So far I’ve managed not to shout at any such people: “NOOO! It’s an amazing thing that EVERYONE should be doing … and enjoying!” ^^! But it’s sometimes really hard when that other person is so overweight and obviously having a hard time just standing up or walking 200m … just can’t help from feeling sorry for them, wanting to shout only to give them a wake-up call, not out of anger. Pretty sure that’d be useless.
Hit about 6.5k steps today, more or less ‘by accident’ – had my partner’s dog, went for a walk with her and my 27 yr old son … the little doggo REALLY wanted to go further, out to a little copse … and I gave in, wanting to go too (weather was nice for November). Didn’t regret it, was fine, as far as I could tell – also the lymph drainage a couple of hours later was fine, no pain, so fingers crossed that the boot is just ‘doing its magic’ as I believe it to be doing. But objectively speaking, probably shouldn’t have done quite as much, especially as I’m slowly transitioning to 100% bad foot loading (Full Weight Bearing) and edging towards crutch-free walking (still only doing like 30-50 steps a small handful of times a day). Oh yes, my PT kindly took some pics I couldn’t … although looking at them now, I see the asymmetrical positioning – weird, ‘cos I’d have sworn I was lying down symmetrical:
Last thing of the day, more or less, was going out for a meal with a long-time friend and ex-colleague – was great, getting out, chatting and all … but the restaurant got really full … I ordered a couple of pizzas for my sons at home towards the end and those pizzas took ages. The end result: sat at a table for 2 1/2 hours = foot swollen and beginning to get painful – goddammit. Back home, though, onto the bed, foot raised nice and high, and a short while later all is good again, as far as I can tell 🙏 !
Friday: one of the first things that happened today was my partner dropping off our (well, mostly her 😅) little dog at my place before she went to work – she has flexible working hours, Friday was and (thankfully) still is typically a ‘dog-sitting’ day for me. The little doggo is a Shih Tzu … not even 5kg (barely 10lbs); my partner found her at a rescue home, a story to be told on another page … BUT she is such an amazing little creature.
I can remember thinking, “Holy shit … please no, nooot a ‘hand-bag’ dog 😬!” … but how wrong can you be?! She’s wonderful … friendly, great with kids, energetic, loves playing but also super cuddly, so chilled you can take her anywhere, doesn’t bark (I really can’t stand those yappy dogs, not gonnal lie!), the list of positive things just goes on and on and on. But why mention her here? Well, although I’ve stayed really positive so far … nothing beats a lovely little dog cuddling up to you as you – yet again – have to lie down on the bed and get your foot up (oh yes, another plus point: she doesn’t leave hair everywhere … Shih Tzus are ‘hypoallergenic’, who’d a thunk it?!). Shortened form: she’s really comforting!
Aaaand … she’s signed off on data protection issues regarding photos 😁, so here she is:
Other things I did today, apart from remote working: aired my foot / took it out of the boot and massaged it a little, plus gently ‘exercised’ it by stretching the toes, and doing other small / low stress movements; went to my valued GP to ask a few questions and get some paperwork – for example for additional PT hours; more journaling (see this entry 😁) plus Redditing, shopping with my ‘number 3’ offspring (27 yr old son; food shop outing doubled up with taking said doggo for a walk).
Milestone: First time outside with just one crutch – popped over to the GP’s, about 250m around the corner.
Saturday: Spent loads of time today generating more webpages for this journal and the resource links, as well as Redditing; also had some good text message exchanges with a couple of excellent contributors to the Reddit Sub /AchillesRupture, that really is a superb community with a wealth of stories, mostly amazing / encouraging in one way or another, and the post authors and mods have been almost without exception very welcoming, helpful, supportive. Go check it out.
Milestone: We had good weather, I was on my feet multiple times today – no massive long stretches, but one was long enough to warrant a short break on a park bench … where I took my boot off for the first time outside. It was REALLY relieving … finally, no fear – respect, yes, but not fear – of and for the injury. As usual (that I can even write ‘as usual’ is almost a milestone in itself!) I went through the limited ROM movements I like to do; very light static calf ‘slow twitches’; gentle toe and foot massages. Finally it seems like I’m beginning to slowly move through the psychological ‘block’ of the injury and seeing it as I need to: I’m injured, yes. But I’m being careful, sensible, slow … and all of that injured area (I am ABSOLUTELY convinced) needs movement … gentle at first, ‘proper’ physio will start soon, but this freedom and fresh air outside SOOO feels like the ‘precursor’ to the physio. Inputs and feedback from the Reddit sub seems to be supporting this feeling / idea … 🙏 .
Sunday: First thing in the morning often sees me (now single-)crutching over to see my partner for a coffee before we start our day properly – we’ve been together for 9 1/2 years; we moved in together fairly quickly back in 2016, just the two of us; some time later, my youngest step-daughter (now 21) moved in … a squeeze in a flat with just 1 bedroom, but we managed (my partner and I moved our bed into the sitting room, partitioned off that section with bookcases).
At the beginning of 2019 we moved across the hallway to a bigger flat with 3 bedrooms – we’d gotten to know the nice family living there, asked them to let us know if they were moving out and they did so. THAT was a massive improvement. In 2021 I had the chance to buy the flat we were living in and did so. 2024 saw my youngest coming to spend more time with us, then moving out of his mother’s to stay permanently … there was some ‘oscillation’ and some conflict so that, when he moved in ‘for good’ in August ’24, my partner moved out.
She found a flat 300m away, which was a small miracle, but suddenly living apart was a big upheaval, a tough time for us both … but we stuck it through. Now those 300m are my ‘warm-up’ for the day – and today I really ‘felt’ my right leg … and it felt good 😀 … so, fired on by some music, I just spontaneously lifted that single crutch and did 50 steps or so – felt pretty smooth:
Ok, I say felt pretty smooth quite consciously … I’m not kidding myself or anyone else that I’m going to be making the cut for Germany’s Next Top Model with the sexiest catwalk performance ^^! Buuut … it felt like actually walking, again … which was good.
I would have happily joined my partner with her two godchildren for a walk to the local woods, some work on a kind of teepee we’ve all had fun building over the last couple of years … however, my memory, largely AWOL at the moment, had let me forget my boot cover (as one can see in the video above) – without that, that idea was a non-starter. So back home to a ‘blood’ family breakfast (4 of my 5 kids were there) – no Haute Cuisine, but some hot coffee and toast plus pancakes.
From 10am to 5pm there was a 10 year anniversary celebration planned at my local climbing gym where I had injured myself … lots to do and see, people to talk to, so my partner very kindly drove me over there. A mixture of chats with people I’d never met (an interesting guy from Petzl, the climbing gear company, for example; also an older guy, around pension age, who’d torn his Achilles 2 years ago – showed me the op scar, told me he was back to everything, without fear, but the recovered leg was down to maybe 70% power) as well as friends I’ve made over the last 8 years or so – really nice mixed bunch, wouldn’t want to be without them.
It was clear there was going to be the usual climbing and bouldering … no taking part there; what I hadn’t planned on was that there was a hangboard competition … figured, no reason not to join in THAT! 1min 2sec … nothing special, but the boot at something like 1.3kg didn’t help much … at least, that’s my excuse ^^!
A friend drove me home from the gym … and after chilling (read Redditing) with my foot up for a while, I decided it was time to release those first 5 degrees on the VACOped. So, the hinge doesn’t work quite as I thought it would do – because of the way you walk, it kinda defaults to 25 degrees as you walk and doesn’t freely move back as you go through the steps … maybe it’ll be different with bigger ROM and me getting more used to walking again … ? I can, however, when I’m lying or sitting down, with a small effort – not scary, not painful, about the same level as the ‘static calf twitches’ or ‘isometric planterflexion’ movements I’ve been doing – move the boot from 30-25 and back again:
Oh yes: I’ve ditched the second crutch, probably for good; however, a telescopic / folding nordic walking stick has now joined the mini folding camping stool in my rucksack ‘just in case’; going up stairs is now easy-peasy … despite boot and crutch, it now feels ‘normal’, with or without using the handrail.
Milestones: a) a reasonably smooth 50 steps, plus, of course, b) the ‘opening up’ of 5 degrees of ROM.
P.S. A Reddit-chat-contact from the Netherlands asked today about supplements: I forgot to mention that, on the 3rd of November, I received a couple of packages of collagen (a type I powder plus a more mixed version in tablet form); along with the vitamin C (1200mg daily) plus Omega-3 (1400mg daily) plus standard multi-vitamin, D3 and B-complex pills, I have been taking around 8-10g of collagen plus 5g Hanf and 5g Almond protein powders mixed into my daily natural yoghurt, oat crunch, cut-up apple; a teaspoon each of linseed and chia also gets chucked in. Other than that, my diet is not ridiculously bad, in general, but it’s fairly chaotic and left to chance – for example, lunch today was a toasted tomato and mozzarella panini at the climbing gym … ‘cos I was hungry and hadn’t planned anything. Occasional boiled eggs and fried chicken breast, amongst other things, bolster my protein intake somewhat. Still enjoy a pizza occasionally though. And toast (although … it was a fairly decent organic spelt bread rather than mass-produced trash).
All in all I’m a bit heavy at the mo … combination of sport dropping off the map and, hate to say it, a degree of snacking … and kinda doubly hate to say it 😬 – but being honest 🫡 – haven’t cut out alcohol either 🙈 – I mean, the first week I drank none whatsoever, but I do like a beer and/or a glass of red wine.
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