Bill Vossler: The Achilles heel
On Jan. 7, 1970, I firmly taped my left Achilles tendon, and even though it ached, I wasn’t about to miss playing in that night’s big amateur basketball game.
When a person runs or jumps the Achilles tendon, the largest and strongest in the body, is subjected to a load of up to ten times one’s body weight. So it is no wonder that it can tear, as with football quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins.
And me. Twice.
In the first quarter of that game, I stole the ball, raced down the floor and when a defender cut in front of me, I jumped and drilled the shot, just as my mortal enemy on the other team kicked my Achilles from behind.
Or so I thought. I collapsed, grabbing my Achilles, turned and saw him immediately behind me. I was livid. I called him a naughty name or two. He looked very surprised. I couldn’t believe the refs didn’t call a foul. I yammered at them as I was helped off the floor.
In the emergency room, the doctor glanced at my limp left foot, and said, “Torn Achilles tendon. Felt like you got kicked, didn’t it.”
“I did get kicked.”
“No, you didn’t. You just thought you did. Everybody thinks that.“
I frowned. Was I wrong?
“When do you want to do surgery?”
“Surgery?” I said, aghast. “My team needs me. I have to be back playing again by halftime.”
He chuckled. “Not hardly. A little more serious than that, I’m afraid.”
On NPR recently, a doctor said, “A torn Achilles tendon looks like a bowl of spaghetti.“
Each torn spaghetti cord on the bottom must be connected to one at the top. Which explains my 104 stitches connecting the many pieces of my torn left Achilles together.
Under the influence of anesthesia, I was later told, I kept the young nurses in stitches. So much so that a couple were disciplined for spending too much time in my room, keeping my roommate from sleeping.
I was out of it, and don’t remember what I said. Who knew I was so funny?
My cast ran from the top of my thigh down to my toes, and itched worst at my inaccessible knee. With crutches, I got around as best as I could, and returned a week later to my day job of teaching English.
After that, each visit to the doctor elicited hope the cast would come off. Instead, the answer was always, “Nope! A few more weeks.” Achilles ruptures were rare, little was known about how to deal with them, and some doctors thought we injured might never walk properly again. Much less play sports at a high level. So I was worried.
Finally, about 12 weeks later, the magic day came. The doctor cut the cast off revealing an ugly skinny leg with a bunch of three-inch-long hairs. Plus, I saw he had inserted a wire connected to a washer on the bottom of my foot, running vertically up eight inches through the center of the Achilles to stabilize it. The wire protruded out of the side of my leg above my ankle, where it was folded over.
He clipped the excess off with a pliers, grabbed the washer, and without warning, jerked hard and yanked the wire out. “Yeow!” I said. As well as a few naughty words.
After examining the dozen scars from the stitches on the inside of my ankle, he grabbed my toes, and said, “How does this FEEL?” he shouted as he forced my foot up as hard as he could.” Which hurt, but the Achilles held.
The Achilles remained stiff for months, and I needed to stretch it every morning. For a couple of months, I played sports gingerly, always worried about retearing it.
Physical therapy and rehabbing did not exist, so I slowly increased my strength and flexibility by running every day, playing softball, baseball, basketball, and tennis at a careful level, until the stiffness disappeared and I forgot I had been injured, and essentially returned to normal.
But I was lucky. First baseman Bill White of the St. Louis Cardinals, an eight-time all-star, who tore his Achilles the same day I tore mine, needed painkillers every day — and it ended his career.
— This is the opinion of Bill Vossler of Rockville, author of 18 books including his latest, "Days of Wonder: A Memoir of Growing Up." He can be reached at bvossler0@outlook.com.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Bill Vossler: The Achilles heel
