My surgery yesterday involved:

• First they gave me a nerve block behind the knee that blocked pain for 24-48 hrs after surgery. A lot of needles while I was semi-conscious—I don’t remember anything about that, but they said I was basically responding to all their questions with sarcastic jokes… I guess the “true me” was coming through :) Then I was given general anesthesia and was out.
• Removal of haglan’s deformity—irregular bone growth on my heel that is the result of my years of achilles tendonitis.
• Flexor hallucis longus (FHL) tendon transfer—they harvested a tendon behind my big toe to lace into the achilles tendon. Basically they drill a hole in my heel and pull that tendon through, which serves as the new anchor. The bone will grow around it to secure the connection.
• Achilles debridement—small cuts are made to the tendon, which stimulates an in-growth of blood vessels and results in a healing response.

I vomited about 6 times after waking up, went home about an hour later. Went right to sleep for about 5 hrs. Watched the Celtics-Lakers game, then the trouble began.

I tried to fall asleep at midnight, but could only sleep for about 30-45 minutes before the pain woke me back up. I took some of the percoset they prescribed @ 5am, but it didn’t help too much. I struggled through it until 6am when I had Shannon go get valium prescription filled, I was writhing in pain waiting for her to get back. Once I got that stuff in my system, I fell asleep until 9am, and my pain level was lowered.

I called the doc, he called me back around noon and he told me a lot of the post-op pain I’m feeling is attributed to the bone work he did. He said today + tomorrow are going to be rough from a pain standpoint, but from there it should slowly subside.

I go in to see him in 2 weeks to get staples out, and then he’ll recast me for another 2 weeks or so. Then I’ll be in a boot for a few weeks before starting physical therapy, around week 6. He thinks there’s a good chance I’ll get back to 100% percent strength, but that’ll be about a year(!) out…