Attending to Thanksgiving with a-Tendon On the Fritz

Sorry for the bad pun but I couldn't resist! Just for the record, if someone ever tries to tell you that cooking isn't more than a little tough on your feet and ankles, tell them to read this blog.

Expecting a total of six of us for Thanksgiving dinner today, and knowing how much I enjoy the leftovers, I purposely got a larger than usual turkey - right around 20 pounds. That's just fine if you are a linebacker for the New England Patriots, but toting the damned bird around back and forth from kitchen island to other counter to stovetop and then into the oven, and then back out again four hours later is no easy feat. Not just that, but, since my partner had gone back to bed to catch up on some lost sleep, I did this all by myself, including the even neater trick of getting it into the Reynolds Oven Bag (wish there had been a camera filming me at that point). Anyway, the dinner went just fine and everything was perfectly yummy but, as we all plopped down in the living room to watch a movie after stuffing ourselves, I noticed a rather large "egg" on my ankle meaning I was swelling up quickly from the long ordeal I'd been through. Out came the familiar ice pack/package of frozen vegetables and, before too long, it subsided and thanked me for taking a breather!

One thing I must have decided early on, going back to just after my surgery took place and I could barely get up off my couch: this was NOT going to defeat me or prevent me from still having a life. In the past two months, I have been on a walker, crutches, a CAM boot, then just down to one crutch and finally walking (at times) with soft velcro-fastening sneakers that are nice and comfy and "real shoes". This is a nice progression when you think about it and I owe a lot of it to obeying my doctor and physical therapist and not pushing things beyond what is comfortable....until today. Doing battle with a twenty pound, slippery, cold, wet bird left me feeling like I was the victim of a TKO (technical knock out!), at least for a little while.

But I have to say it was worth it. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the meal (and thanks, Mom, for the awesome stuffing you always made which I continue to make now many years later - there was hardly any left!), and, even better, we enjoyed each other's company, had a lot of laughs and topped things off with a bizarre comedy called "Lars and the Real Girl". In other words, everyone was happy before, during and after this very long day. So, for anyone who is dreading or has already gone through a ruptured achilles tendon surgery, just take this much to heart: even though your life will change dramatically for a few months, you WILL still enjoy Thanksgiving, a large turkey with great stuffing and, best of all, the kid in you who always enjoyed these holidays should survive intact...if you just attend to it from time to time and, just once in a while, break a few rules! Just make sure to ice down any swelling and no one will ever be the wiser. :-)