Now what?

One day, you’re moving and grooving, doing anything and everything your body will allow you to do - run, jump, lift heavy things, dance with your loved ones, or chasing after your little ones. We don’t think too much of it because why should we? Then one day, while trying to hold onto some part of your youth, you decide you’re going to continue playing a sport that you know you should probably give up, at least playing competitively. But instead, you keep going while taking the necessary precautions - stretching, warming up, and being mindful of the things you can do or shouldn’t be doing while playing.

I told myself, “I’m only going to play two games and then go home to make dinner.” It must have been maybe a few minutes of the second game when one of the more catastrophic injuries took place - a ruptured achilles tendon. No one was around me when it happened and as soon I heard and felt the “pop”, being the physical therapist that I am, I knew immediately how devastating of an injury I had just suffered. I didn’t want to believe that this just happened so I sat in the corner, simply dumbfounded and numb.

I knew my recovery was going to be an awfully long one and with all this new “free time” I had, I thought to myself, “how in the hell am I going to be a functioning parent, husband, and person?” At the time of the injury, my son was 8 months, learning to stand and furniture cruising all around the house. I began to think of all the different ways I can maneuver in our apartment, but ultimately, one thought was always on the forefront of my mind — “how am I going to be able to carry my son and move around the apartment at the same time?”

There were long nights of doomscrolling through reddit and other social media accounts, watching vlogs on youtube of people going through the same injury, and reading up on all the latest evidence based research regarding achilles tendon rupture recovery. The hardest part to accept is knowing that the road ahead is going to be difficult, lonely, and downright demoralizing. Having a support system is wonderful but sometimes you need someone that will tell it to you straight, someone who has been through something similar.

So, follow me through this journey as I discuss the good, the bad, the boring, the what the hell is going on, and everything in between. As dark as it may seem, building resilience and a life of movement with confidence and pain-free is achievable.

- P.