I had my achilles surgery yesterday afternoon. So far, so good! Weirdly enough, my pain level is totally manageable. I’m taking a combination of a little percocet plus plain old regular aspirin. And yeah, sure, it hurts some, but I’m far from hating life or anything like that.
To be honest, I’m a little baffled as to why I haven’t been hurting more. The initial snap of the tendon was a surprise of course, but the whole time before surgery I barely felt any pain at all, and could put some weight in the bad leg, even though the ankle & achilles area was fairly swollen. The explanations I’ve gotten from the ER doc and orthopedist include:
- There just aren’t that many nerve endings in the part of the leg where the tendon split.
- The tendon ruptured on its own, not as part of some larger, more traumatic injury.
- All the other foot and ankle muscles and tendons are totally fine.
Truly, the only time I’ve felt actual, OUCH-level pain was right before surgery when the orthopedist had to push into the back of my leg to mark the spot where the tendon had broken. “Let me know where it hurts,” he said. When he got to the spot, I believe my exact words were “YEP THERE WE GO!”
I don’t say all this to humblebrag or anything like that. I just...expected this to suck a lot more than it has, I guess.
It’s early going but I’m cautiously optimistic that by Monday I’ll be able to return to my “office” that I’ve been using since my injury.
