HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Tami Lang has heard all the horse jokes.

“Are you feeling your oats, today, Tami?”

“I can truly say my wife’s a real nag,” her husband says.

“Hello, Seabiscuit” is the phone greeting she gets from her sister.

But Lang, 46, doesn’t mind. Humor has helped get her through the painful and difficult days since she learned she needed reconstruction of her right Achilles’ tendon. The tendon was replaced by an equine pericardium, the thin membrane that surrounds a horse’s heart. It’s known as a Pegasus (named after the mythical winged horse) graft.

The jokes quickly started – many from Lang herself.

“One day my husband and I were riding along and I said, “Stop the car,”‘ said Lang. “There were horses in the field, and I told Bob that might be some of my relatives.

“I had to joke about it or I wouldn’t have made it,” said Lang.

What was done to her foot and leg – a 10-inch cut from heel to calf, and another 5-inch incision along the bottom part of the heel – was no laughing matter.

“Tami was not going to get any better without the surgery,” said Dr. John Kirchner, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. “She definitely would have been on a cane or in a wheelchair (the rest of her life).”

The pain started in 2006, but after a trip to Disney World in 2007, Lang could hardly walk.

It was diagnosed as tendinitis, but physical therapy, and then a walking boot, provided little relief. The odds for a successful surgery were 75 percent, but Lang rejected it.

Frustrated, Lang was referred to Kirchner at UAB by her family physician.

Lang was apprehensive about the surgery, but Kirchner told her his success rate is 95 percent. Surgery to place the graft into her Achilles’ tendon was performed April 29.

“Many women in their 40s and 50s have problems with their Achilles’ tendon,” said Kirchner. “When a woman wears high heels, the Achilles’ tendon and whole muscle tendon group gets tighter. As they get older and begin to lower their heels, it puts a lot of pressure on the Achilles’ tendon.”

Kirchner said Lang’s problem – insertiable tendinitis – is traditionally treated by replacing it with a tendon from the patient’s big toe. But Kirchner said that is akin to replacing a thumb with a pinkie finger.

So, for Lang, he turned to the Pegasus graph, a surgery he has performed about 100 times. He said Lang had a Haglund’s deformity, a spur on her heel.

Lang admits to wearing heels as a teenager and young adult during “disco time.” But Kirchner said genetics or even a direct injury to the heel area can also lead to insertiable tendinitis.

“The injury makes scar tissue that starts tearing and healing,” said Kirchner. “A Haglund’s deformity can form on the heel and as you bend the foot up, it rolls into the Achilles’ tendon. The tendon reacts by getting inflamed.”

Kirchner said the inflamed tendon heals itself at night, but re-tears in the morning when a person steps out of bed. The body tries to heal by developing a spike of a bone on the back of the heel.

Kirchner said the best way to prevent insertiable tendinitis is to do 10-minute stretching exercises each morning and night, or to take part in something such as yoga or Pilates to help keep the tendons in good working condition.

Lang still faces months of painful physical therapy. An administrative assistant in the math department and a teacher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, she was back on the job by June.

One recent morning, Lang wanted a granola bar from a vending machine in the building where she works.

Husband Bob, who also works at UAH, and a student walked alongside Lang as she maneuvered her walker to the snack area. When they arrived, only one granola bar was available: oats and honey.

That sent Lang, her husband and the student into gales of laughter.

A horselaugh, no doubt.