Injury Update

[geminigirl]

So, it appears to not be the muscle that was damaged, but as I feared, the Achilles tendon. Small tear. Not serious enough to require surgery (the only good news) but will require PT. And minimum one more week on crutches. I'm glad this happened after Pride here, but any thoughts I had of going up for NY Pride are squashed. I'm also very grumpy. These things can take months to heal...I'm hoping I'll be allowed to go back to some karate sooner rather than later...tommx did point out the fact that it would be better to be back intact than still injured. I was hoping to get back next week. This is not the case.

Injuries happen; it's a hazard of sports...I'm trying to keep a positive attitude here, but I can't help wanting to be angry and sulky about it.

Comments

[tommx.livejournal.com]

it's tough i know, but believe me, you don't want to damage your achillies tendon further. one thing you can do is run through kata in your head. it sounds trite, but believe me, it helps, especially when you have to sit out for an extended period of time. it's largely what kept me sane when i was gimp of the year.

[geminigirl]

Yeah, I know. I need to wait for it to heal. In the meantime, I'm bored and grouchy and stressed. Screw that. I'm downright pissed off. Hopefully I'll be back in a week or two, even if I'm doing PT concurrently. I miss the physical part, but even more than that, I miss the mental part. Already. It's annoying and frustrating to not be mobile enough to do things, but I can deal with that. It's losing a couple of hours a week of being able to sink into not thinking about anything else but karate...the focus. It's also the fact that it will take time to get back to where I was, and who knows how long that will take.

I'm pissed...and I'm trying to keep a positive attitude...I played cards tonight, which helped to distract me. I just need to find my sanity again...

*sigh*

[ms-adria.livejournal.com]

Two years ago I foot surgery; during the surgery the surgeon had to partially detach and re-attach my achilles tendon. It has a pin. Yours isn't has bad as mine. I was on crutches for 3 weeks, plus two weeks of working my way off them (also I was recovering from the foot surgery itself), 3 months later I could barely tell I had had any surgery on my foot or anything happening to my achilles tendon. I've been quite physically active (on and off) since then, and I've never had any problems.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I have a friend, D, who year ago ran so much with a partial torn achilles that she felt better when it finally popped on her. In fact, it was so much less pain than she had been in that she didn't realize that it had popped for about 2 weeks. (Good thing a mutual friend of ours is a PT, otherwise she'd probably still be hobbling on it 12 years later.) She just thought her foot was floppy and the pain a bit less. So I can imagine that the pain you are in while it is in an inbetween state must be very painful.

You might want to consider doing Tai Chi for awhile while you are recovering once you become more mobile. There are a lot of people that temporarily do that sport to recover from other injuries. Also you might want to look into Yoga or Pilates, although you would have to be very careful with some of the poses. I had to start doing yoga last year when I switched from karate to taekwon do, because I wasn't flexible enough for TKD. I am just starting to pilates, because I am hoping that stronger core muscles will help with competition sparring.

[geminigirl]

I've been wanting to pilates for quite a while, but can't find a place around here that does it on a schedule that fits mine, and that I can afford. If I knew one tape from the other, I'd probably go pick one of the tapes up to try it out. I've liked it the handful of times that I have done it, and wouldn't mind doing it a couple of days a week. I used to do tai chi and I know that based on what I'm feeling right now, it would be a bad choice to try and do that.