Hey guys! Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes. It's been interesting. For more than 20 years, that heel has been deteriorating. Early visits to a podiatrist was, "live with it...surgery is too risky." Well, it started hurting around 1996 and has slowly continued that low grade, throbbing hurt. Had to have inserts and that mitigated. But, over time, it continued to degrade. Last Monday, ironically during a great visit with Highflyer, it was time for the heel and Achilles' tendon to part company. All I did was stand up, take a step and "POP!!" I felt it snap, like when you get a serious ankle sprain. I went down on the living room floor and thought about it and knew what it was. Brian helped me up, I tried to stand and that foot didn't work. I was done. Add ice pack immediately, call my registered nurse daughter to come get me and off to the hospital. ER doc said, "Yep, ruptured Achilles. Call your orthopedic surgeon and go see him." Daughter Lindsay knows the ropes and fought through many obstacles to get this done as quickly as possible. I went home, she went to work. Got Dr. appointment with a great orthopedic doctor for Wednesday, x-rays didn't show enough. MRI people were booked for a week. She got me in at 1:00 that same day. Dr. Wilson, the ortho, called me Wednesday night to confirm what the MRI showed. Pulled loose from the heel bone, large bone spur on the back of the heel. He was worried about calcium deposits in the distal end of the loose tendon. My daughter had already looked his surgery schedule for Thursday and Friday (She works at that hospital). She told him he had openings for Friday...he smiled. We scheduled for Friday at noon-30 and got it done. Afterward, he said there was more damage than he could see on the MRI, so he sawed off the big bone spur, sanded down several calcium deposits on the heel bone, cut off a small portion of the tendon, drilled holes in the heel bone, pushed in some steel anchors from the bottom and attached the tendon to that. He thought it would be a 45 minute operation. Took two hours. The fascinating thing to me, is that this procedure was done, they kept in recovery until I could get into a wheelchair and then sent me home. So thankful for that! Surrounded by people who want to help and now I'm home, alert and happy. Pain is minimal at the moment because of a nerve block before surgery.
I'm actually happy and see this as an opportunity to stop balancing so many balls and spinning plates. I expect to be able to write a lot and do some neglected things...such as spend time on the forum.
Many thanks to each and everyone of you for your kindness and sincere thoughts.

Teach a man to grow fish...
He can teach to catch fish...