Long’s road back has twists, turns

Eager for return after surgeries, staph infection

The Tennessean
05/08/07

By PAUL KUHARSKY, Staff Writer

When Titans defensive tackle Rien Long ripped up his right Achilles
tendon last summer during an innocuous drill on the first day of
training camp in Clarksville, he knew it would be a treacherous road back.

What he couldn’t have known then was that a staph infection months later
would complicate things even further. In fact, doctors later told him
there was one 24-hour stretch where they worried he might lose his right
foot.

Titans veterans have been working out together since March 19, but today
they are on the field for their first official minicamp practice of the
offseason.

Long won’t be with them. He will still be patrolling the outskirts of a
football practice, an outsider wishing he could be part of things.

"You’ll see some creepy dude salivating on the sideline, wanting to get
back out there," Long said. "That’ll be me."

Long will continue lonely rehabilitation work, eager to be part of the
next series of sessions, in June, though he may not be ready to go full
speed until training camp opens in late July.

An effective interior pass rusher, Long might be an important piece for
a defense looking to move up the league’s defensive rankings. The Titans
ranked dead last in 2006.

Despite Long’s account of the staph infection and resulting treatment,
Titans Coach Jeff Fisher said "at no time" was losing the foot a concern.

"It was a highly unusual thing, a difficult injury from a coping
standpoint," Fisher said. "He had a setback before he had the staph
infection. As we speak right now, most of it’s behind him… He should
be good to go without any issues at all by training camp."

Like many of his colleagues around the NFL, Fisher has become
increasingly reserved in talking about injuries, even during the offseason.

No medical officials connected to the team were available to discuss Long.

Sliced

Long said he was told most serious Achilles injuries render that area of
the foot looking like something blew up inside, but his was different –
a clean slice that he was told would actually make it easier to repair.

But the first setback prompted a second operation, likely setting the
stage for the complications.

Long said he somehow aggravated the Achilles while going up some stairs.
When doctors checked it out, they decided it needed to be
"re-tightened," Long said.

According to Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt infectious disease
specialist with no specific knowledge of Long’s case, repeat surgeries
at the same anatomical site severely limit or stop blood flow to the
scarred area, thus increasing the possibility of staph infections.

Williams said staph is a bacterium that 20 to 30 percent of all people
carry in their nasal cavities or even on their bodies, and infection is
a risk in any surgical procedure.

When the infection occurred, Long said he felt and saw something was
wrong. A day later, he wasn’t feeling very well.

The area that had been surgically repaired was especially sore. He was
given antibiotics and told to report back if it got worse.

It did.

"That next day it was nasty; it was purple, just oozing stuff," he said.
"It was just disgusting, swelled up. It felt like someone was holding a
lighter behind my Achilles."

He was rushed into surgery to clean it out.

Only after the fact did he learn just how dire his situation might have
been.

"They told me (there had been a point where) we’d have to wait and see
in the next 24 hours if my foot would still be attached to my body,"
Long said.

"They didn’t know if they were going to have to cut it off or not.
Luckily it just ate away the skin and we caught it early enough, it
didn’t get into the Achilles or anywhere else…"

"Wow. I went from ‘I can’t wait to get back for next season’ to being
thankful I’ve got a foot to walk on."

Setback

The second surgery and the subsequent infection completely altered
Long’s recovery schedule.

When Long got out of the hospital, doctors hadn’t closed the gap in the
back of his leg.

Schaffner, the uninvolved Vanderbilt doctor, said such wounds typically
cannot be closed, as they must heal from the bottom up.

Long said he carried around a medical device that he described as a mini
vacuum cleaner, whose constant suction literally helped hold things
together.

He was on such a strong antibiotic, he said, it "felt like it was giving
me a heart attack."

"It was wild; I could see my Achilles when they changed the bandage or
the suction sponge," he said. "I could move my Achilles, and it was
pretty cool to see that, it was all the way down."

Then came grafting in December, when skin from his hip was used to fill
in the hole left when skin was lost to the infection. There was a second
skin graft, then a third in February with some sort of synthetic, Long said.

A freak injury on the first day of training camp was bad enough.

Additional surgery, the infection and subsequent treatment stretched out
an injury that might have been resolved in January.

"It set him back… but he’s progressing now," Fisher said. "We were
concerned, he was concerned, but he’s got most of it behind him."

Pushing for it

So tired of work on an elliptical machine in the Titans’ training room.
Long said got to a point where he was pleading for permission to run.

Few football players relish the chance to do short sprints, 100-yard
runs and to begin agility work like Long has.

The skin is still healing, Long said, but he has functionality of the
repaired muscle.

"The Achilles is fine; I’m running around doing normal stuff," he said.

Just back from a vacation in Costa Rica, Long has cleared his head.

The 2006 season was supposed to be a breakthrough year for him. If he
continued to emerge as a consistent pass-rushing force, he might have
positioned himself for a significant payday as an unrestricted free agent.

Instead, everything got pushed back a year, and he signed a one-year
deal to return.

"I can’t wait to get back on that field and do what I used to do," he
said. "It’s like I got held back. It’s like I’ve got to repeat the
fourth grade. I’ve got to do it over again."

Reach Paul Kuharsky at 615-259-8024 or pkuharsky@tennessean.com.

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