Yep, it's gone. There is a gap in the back of my ankle where the strongest tendon in my body used to be. We're all familiar with the Greek Warrior 'Achilles'; fabled for his unparalleled strength in all parts of his being...expect for his heel. And after taking an arrow to the back of his foot, homeboy was useless....Well so am I.
Yesterday while playing a pickup game of flag football down in San Diego, my team was on defense and the play call was for a blitz. This play was just like any other that I'd had over the course of the day as I was perpetually thinking about the best way to avoid injuring my knee. I've had terrible knees for the last few years and whenever I'm doing anything that involves fast movement and directional changes, I have a heightened level of sensitivity around the anchors of my legs. I suppose that would be the second least of my worries.
As the ball was hiked, I planted my foot to begin the play. When I stepped forward, I felt something in the back of my ankle just above my heel; like someone had dropped a weight on me or jumped down on top of my leg. After I fell to the ground, I rolled over to diagnose what had just happened. I looked at my ankle and it wasn't dangling off or anything so all was well there--but then I looked at the area where my leg met the back of my shoe and said "yup, that was my achilles, DAMMIT". Basically there was an air pocket of loose skin where my tendon used to be. Between the fits of pain, racing through my mind were the inconveniences involved with being unable to walk for the foreseeable future.
At this point I'm 36 hours out from the rupture and another 60 hours from my surgery. It was pretty foul listening to the orthopedic specialist describe how they're going slice open the back of my leg, pull down the tendon that has rolled up my calf, and reattach it to what little tendon was left behind my heel.
I guess we'll see how things go over the next few days. I'm 98% immobile and dropping percocets every 5 hours which have been piping me off into a land of disillusioned enchantment full of colorful bubbles and soft sleepy sheep. It could be worse though. I could've torn it while doing something far less cool than playing football.
More to come...