The Story of Achilles: The Beginning

Today

The cotton padding is starting to fall apart. Three weeks into this confinement, the cast has begun to wreak havoc behind my knee. Perhaps it’s the freedom from pain, allowing me too much movement. While my surgically repaired Achilles tendon is getting the much needed rest, the rest of me is ensuring a strong frame is maintained and ready for the moment, as the cast is removed three weeks from now, when it will be required to take up the new slack.

In the fading moments of clarity before sleep envelops my mind, I sometimes liken my leg and its fibre-glass exoskeleton to captives experiencing Stockholm Syndrome towards their captors. There are panicky flashes of apprehension when I think about the day when I will no longer have the safety and security of this cast protecting my reincarnated tendon, leaving me vulnerable to the dangers of the outside world as I unavoidably, albeit tentatively, embark upon the long journey of rehabilitation. The replayed memory of the one step that went wrong sends neurotic nerve signals down my leg, and I struggle to suppress a sharp pain concocted in my mind, a haunting feeling I yet cannot escape.

The following is a retrospective journal of my injury, and the subsequent days.

February 2, 2011 - 1715hrs

After months of excuses, citing reasons both valid and vapid, we’re warming up, jogging towards the stadium to wean our way back into the lifestyle movement we boast - parkour. Now warm, stretched, and bursting with a youthful pride belied by our true ages, we begin practicing wall climbs. The familiar motions come back with repeated attempts.

The confidence returns.

The walls get higher.

At 12 feet, I say, “I can make that.” My fingertips graze the top on the first attempt. With an air of [ ... ], I take an extra step back and proclaim, “I’m making that wall!”

I charge the wall.

The first footplant is solid.

The second is almost gravity defying.

The third is ... *pop!*

Gravity, no longer defied, catches up with me and I return to earth, rolling out of the inevitable crash with second nature fluidity. But something is wrong. It’s not my twice dislocated ankle that is hurting... in fact, there is little pain whatsoever. Just a definitely wrong feeling. I try to stand and promptly keel over face first. Now, the pain roars from behind my ankle. I look down at where my Achilles tendon should be, and see no tension in the skin. It is completely ruptured (a fact that will only be confirmed 16 hours later, as I am being admitted to the hospital for corrective surgery).

February 4, 2011 - 1400hrs

Its taking me a while to get the piercings out by myself, having lost the argument that none of my adornments are anywhere near my leg, much less foot. Most of the people in Victoria Hospital’s Ward 9 are staring in unabashed curiosity at the tattooed man without bandages or an IV drip, who lies among them, who is now struggling to unscrew, unclamp, and unhinge stainless steel rods and rings from his face and chest. Two orderlies saunter into the ward, wheeling a gurney between them. One stares, the other simply says, “It’s your turn” as he tosses me a gown. A gown known by some other standard, I muse as I stare at the floral patterned sheet with no holes, but lined with clips and strings.

1430hrs

It takes a while for Dr. Ali, the anesthesiologist to deliver the epidural, much less find the correct gap in my vertebrae. I am, it seems at the wrong end of a genetic joke, having the unfortunate physiology whereby my only susceptibility to tickles is my lower back. Within minutes though, I am reluctantly experiencing paralysis from my waist down. Physically reluctant to so utterly relinquish control of my body, but, as I was to be awake for the operation, I was rejoicing mentally.

Throughout the prep, and while getting through my flesh to the meat of the matter, the surgical team share the latest gossip. I am somewhat calmed by the fact that this is one of the most common sports injuries and corrective surgeries.

Then Dr. David exclaims, “Whoa! This is the most interesting rupture I have ever seen!”

It's quiet for a few seconds as they all look at my injury.

“Can I see?”

I twist my neck to look squarely at one of the nurses who I earlier spied placing her phone on a counter in the theatre. She looks at Dr. David who I assume assents, then retrieves her phone. I hear a click and she shows me the most interesting rupture they had ever seen.

“Cool” is all I can muster, before the reality that I am looking at my own ankle sets it.

My heart rate involuntarily climbs, and Dr. Ali gives me something cold to relax. It feels like cold little metallic nano-bots creeping in from the IV, up my arm and into my head. Slowly, the table across the room starts to dance, and I remember that I am in surgery, not mortal danger. Dr. Ali talks to me for a while, and I am aware that my heartbeat is once again slow and steady. It’s going to be ok.

1500hrs

I’m sitting in Ward 9, trying to screw, bolt, pinch my piercings back into my skin, paranoid that in the hour they’ve been out, their homes would have been foreclosed. Once again, I have an audience. The nurse patiently waits for me to finish and instructs me to lie back and relax as she fixes a saline drip to my IV. I tell her I feel fine, but she insists, knowingly informing me that although surgery is over, the worst is yet to come. My wife and a few close friends come by and we all comment and joke apprehensively about the cast and the days to come.

February 5, 2011 - 0215hrs

The nurse was right.

1700hrs

I am discharged. I manage to get to the car on my own, very slowly, with the crutches.

February 6-11, 2011

Day and night blur beyond recognition.

There is an ever-present disorientation.

There is a pain in my back and neck that feel like Death setting up camp in anticipation.

This horror is constantly searching for a fault in the heavy painkillers barricade. The battle leaves me extremely fatigued from the simplest actions. I estimate times passing by counting the remaining medications and remembering what I last ate. Self pity is impeded only by the realisation of the burden I have put on my wife’s already laden shoulders.

February 12, 2011

My aunt, a medical professional suggests that the heavy painkillers I am on are actually inhibiting my recovery at this stage. I switch to a lesser medication - 400mg Ibuprofen. The effect is almost instantaneous. Within hours, I am able to sit up and eat an entire plate of food in one go. By the evening, relieving myself is no longer a desperate, daunting task. I can feel the rest of my body regaining it’s former control and strength returning. More importantly, the debilitating pain in my spine and neck is diminishing noticeably as my spinal fluid is restored.

With my burgeoning mobility and awareness, I begin to understand that it is neither my injury nor the surgery which are truly painful. Recovery is the most difficult part of the process - physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Even more so for my wife.