Achilles Tendon: –noun Anatomy . the tendon joining the calf muscles to the heel bone.

No stretching + no warm-up + quick movements + basketball = completely torn achilles tendon = pain, surgery, crutches, long recovery, and no sports.

Illustrated:

March 19: 1 day after surgery

Ryan giving her daddy a snug March 6: 3 weeks after surgery

This pretty much tells what we've been up to lately. On Wed. March 9 Billy tore his achilles tendon playing basketball with some friends. He was in some pretty excruciating pain when it initially happened, but isn't in much pain anymore. He was able to find a good surgeon who specializes in sports injuries and was able to have surgery about 1 week after it happened...we were all happy about that. The sooner the surgery, the sooner the recovery could begin. He's had the cast changed every week so that the surgeon could remove stitches and move his foot (started downward and now about to a 90 degree angle/neutral so that the tendon could slowly stretch). Ryan's enjoyed seeing the different colored "socks" that he comes home from the Dr.'s office (we've had white, blue, red, and now black). Next week he will get the cast off for good and the recovery looks like this:

4 weeks in a boot with crutches, 4 weeks in a boot without crutches, normal shoe and physical therapy.

It's been an adjustment having Billy very limited in what he can do (for both of us), but we're doing good and Billy is a trooper. He took 1 week off of work and has been learning to use crutches while he teaches. He was really worried about playing sports again, but the surgeon was optimistic that if Billy is diligent in doing everything the Dr. tells him then he should be able to return to full athletic activity. It definitely makes us grateful to have healthy bodies that work properly. He should be good as new (well...walking) by the time the baby is born. :)

Thank you to all the prayers that went out on our behalf. Billy's recovery is going great. We really appreciate all the love and support.