Hurt Bad

[ForeverHeat]

That was emotional man I remember reading this thread a year ago.

[rufuspaul]

[Rake2204]

Man, I read this thread as being current. The return caught me off guard. Congrats!

Two questions though: 1) How old are you and 2) How painful was the initial injury?

[Thorpesaurous]

Man, I read this thread as being current. The return caught me off guard. Congrats!

Two questions though: 1) How old are you and 2) How painful was the initial injury?

I'll be 37 on March 1st god willing.

The injury was pretty excruciating. I can't get the feeling of it out of my mind. Not so much the pain, as the physical sensation of the feeling of the thing tearing, almost slowly. Kind of the way you'd tear a piece of fruit by the foot, where the the tensile strength you can just feel going slowly, then "POP!!!".

I know my first instant reaction was one of my foot just weirdly not working. It wasn't until a few seconds went by that I felt the warm rush of pain run up my body and trigger. The cold sweats and feeling like I was gonna puke was genuine. But once I got sat down, sort of mentally decided what it was, and got something to chew on, I sort of let the pain go. And it was only an hour before the the ambulance got me to the hospital, where they almost immediately hit me up with morphine. I remember waking up the next morning and thinking I might actually be alright. That's how good that morphine will do ya.

On the other hand, I did throw a blood clot during recovery which didn't help my cause at all. Being on blood thinners is not good for healing ... and that's my non-medical expert opinion.

The blood clot was one of the most excruciating things I've ever felt. I was in a walking boot, probably a month after surgery. I had been given some pretty serious pain meds, but other than the first two nights after surgery, and mostly for sleep, never touched them. All of a sudden I'm being woken by the pain in the middle of the night. I had gone back to work pretty quickly. I was on an aspirin regiment that I was honestly maintaining. And was keeping my foot up as much as I could. Apparently not enough. Just trying to do too much I suppose. On the crutches too often.

Anyway, it finally got bad enough for me to talk to the doctor, and thank god I did. He was actually kind of a prick about it. Said I shouldn't be feeling that kind of pain, that it couldn't be from anything he did, wanted me to go see my regular MD, but I pushed, and he gave me an appointment, for which he didn't show up. I wound up with the AP. My mother has 40 years as an RN, and really knows her stuff, and thankfully she was there too. The AP who was a hot young girl, said the surgery seemed fine, although a bit too swollen. It wasn't until my mother suggested the clot that the girl said maybe. They set me up for a scan as soon as I could get there, and when I did the girl was freaked out. She was an AP too, she was on her cell phone to her boss saying I was bad. There was talk of possible amputation. I spent the weekend on hardcore blood thinners, basically out of it, until finally being weaned down to something like your grandmother's cumadin.


The bad news is that I've all but been told this will happen to the left leg too eventually. My achilles are both scarred to hell from years of damage from playing. And as I've gotten older, they lose their elasticity, and when one of those tiny scars gets stretched the wrong way, when I was younger the tendon could hold up, but not anymore. But my feeling is I can try to squeeze as much more basketball as I can out of my body now, probably blowing it out in the process, or I can stop playing, which I don't want to do yet, and blow it out 10 years from now trying to get off the toilet or some shit. The repaired one is apparently stronger than ever, so it's not going to go anywhere. It just lacks the original flexibility. Any issues I have with that are related to how much I need to compensate for it for my own discomfort, which is something I've always been pretty good at.

I do also worry about my knees, which have also had multiple orthoscopic surgeries done, in regard to them taking on more stress to compensate for how weak my calf is at this point. But whatever. As long as I'm playing even just a little.

[glidedrxlr22]

Did you gain weight with less activity? How were you cardio wise after you played again recently?

[Jailblazers7]

Jesus, your description of an Achilles tear made me want to puke.

Glad to hear you are doing well. I don't know whether to describe your love for the game as admirable or insane but it is certainly extraordinary.

[Thorpesaurous]

Did you gain weight with less activity? How were you cardio wise after you played again recently?

I've gone through this before with people and been told I'm a fatso, which really doesn't bother me much at 37.
In HS I played at about 190 lbs, and I'm just about 6' tall. I had, and still have really big thighs and and a big ass. But I was in rediculously good shape. Went two years without losing a sprint in a practice. Ran in the four by 100. Played safety on the football team. No one would've described me as heavy, but then again no one would've ever guessed I weighed more than 170 lbs.
I played in college as a walk on but spent a year as a manager, and the amount of physical work I put in wasn't as drastic. I got up to 210 or so.

I've sat most of my adult life at around 235. On the day of the injury I had been working out and playing pretty regularly and had gotten to 222 lbs. I actually weighed myself that night before leaving work. After the injury I ballooned up to as high as 260. I started bike riding a bit around the new year, and changed my diet a bit (I've drastically reduced my white carb intake, although not eliminated it). I'm back to about 235 now.

I have a bit of a unique cardio situation. I was born with one lung. So I've always gotten winded sort of quick, but my second wind is unusually strong. My doctor says it's a matter of my one lung stretching out giving me these big deep breaths. I don't know if that's truely the reason, but it's always been the case. I'm certainly not going to say I was gonna be running circles around people, but I really limited what I did for the sake of my legs, and can't for sure say how good or bad it would've been. My second half run of 7-8 minutes did conclude with some defensive basket hanging.

[KobesFinger]

I've gone through this before with people and been told I'm a fatso, which really doesn't bother me much at 37.
In HS I played at about 190 lbs, and I'm just about 6' tall. I had, and still have really big thighs and and a big ass. But I was in rediculously good shape. Went two years without losing a sprint in a practice. Ran in the four by 100. Played safety on the football team. No one would've described me as heavy, but then again no one would've ever guessed I weighed more than 170 lbs.
I played in college as a walk on but spent a year as a manager, and the amount of physical work I put in wasn't as drastic. I got up to 210 or so.

I've sat most of my adult life at around 235. On the day of the injury I had been working out and playing pretty regularly and had gotten to 222 lbs. I actually weighed myself that night before leaving work. After the injury I ballooned up to as high as 260. I started bike riding a bit around the new year, and changed my diet a bit (I've drastically reduced my white carb intake, although not eliminated it). I'm back to about 235 now.

I have a bit of a unique cardio situation. I was born with one lung. So I've always gotten winded sort of quick, but my second wind is unusually strong. My doctor says it's a matter of my one lung stretching out giving me these big deep breaths. I don't know if that's truely the reason, but it's always been the case. I'm certainly not going to say I was gonna be running circles around people, but I really limited what I did for the sake of my legs, and can't for sure say how good or bad it would've been. My second half run of 7-8 minutes did conclude with some defensive basket hanging.

How do you play ball with one lung? I feel ashamed of my cardio now, a couple trips up and down the floor and I'm bent over catching my breath so I hang back and just D up. Props man.

[Thorpesaurous]

How do you play ball with one lung? I feel ashamed of my cardio now, a couple trips up and down the floor and I'm bent over catching my breath so I hang back and just D up. Props man.

I've been asked that many times. But I can't really tell you the difference because it's all I've known. Like I said, I've always seemed to get winded quickly, but then had an abnormally strong second wind. Who knows.

[KevinNYC]

Good luck

[Draz]

I hope you recover. Be safe brother.

[Bandito]

Remember to take your time and don't rush it.

[HarryCallahan]

Cool story bro. Needs more slutty foreigners and poker though.

[tomtucker]

This is the kind of tears athletes are prone to get, especielly if they are overweight........only game where the team allows players to be fat are in MLB.......Just saw the Dodgers Yasiel Puig, he looked fat...........just read he gained 26 lbs, up to 250 now......he gonna tear like OP

btw,congratulation to OP

[ImKobe]

This is the kind of tears athletes are prone to get, especielly if they are overweight........only game where the team allows players to be fat are in MLB.......Just saw the Dodgers Yasiel Puig, he looked fat...........just read he gained 26 lbs, up to 250 now......he gonna tear like OP

btw,congratulation to OP

The achilles tear/rupture is totally random, it can happen to anyone in any condition, Kobe was in his best shape last season after having dropped like 20 pounds in the off-season and looked 5 years younger, yet he tore his on a simple drive attempt.

And I'm happy for the OP, I remember reading this last year.