Doctor’s Visit for the Achilles

“You have Achilles tendinitis. Or it might be tendinosis. That’s where the tendon degenerates because of your age,” said my doctor. I didn’t mind. I had a hunch that in less than six weeks he’d get that old tendon ready for another marathon. And with some painful ankle tissue work, he did. That tendon just ran another marathon and might have even qualified for Boston* so as far as I’m concerned he can make all the age comments he wants.

Before I went to the doctor, my Achilles tendinitis coupled with a bursitis from twisting the same ankle in a hole hidden by leaves gave me one of the most painful hours of my life. It ranked just a little lower than the drug-free birthing of our children. I thought the tendon had ruptured. The air itself seemed to hurt my heel. There would be no driving, sleeping or even thinking with this pain.

After icing, elevating my foot, and taking some ibuprofen, the writhing pain subsided but I still couldn’t put any weight on it. As my husband started to clean the kitchen, a great desire to clean the kitchen and make dinner absolutely shocked me. I used to view myself as kind of a kitchen troll. I’d cook and clean but not always very cheerfully.

Now that I couldn’t, I really wanted to clean the whole house. And go grocery shopping and drive the kids to all their places. That terrible pain was like the ghost of Christmas future. Forget running, my daily and weekly chores that, at times I counted as a drudgery, became the very things I wished I could to do.

Daily Gifts for Others

The service the Lord gives us is a blessing and it’s also a gift we can give others. Not only is the service a gift but the way you give the gift is a gift. “God loves a cheerful giver” it says in 2 Corinthians 9:7. One year, my sister gave me a gift that looked like it had been professionally wrapped. Fancy boxes with scalloped edges were stacked and tied together with a lovely ribbon, a bell and a sparkling “M” for my initial. I can’t remember what was in the gift but I’ll always remember the way she gave it and how special it made me feel.

Service given in patience and joy tells others they are worth your time. It’s a wasted effort to wrap dinners or laundry or driving in an attitude that says we’d rather be doing something else. Even if nobody recalls all you did, the way you did it will matter most.

My Achilles injury showed me where I can strengthen my family. God’s sense of humor here is sweet too. Achilles in Greek literature was the hero who was dunked in a river to make him invincible by his mother. She held him by his heel so the water didn’t touch that spot and it became his great weakness and downfall. As a mom, if there was a place to dunk my kids into to make them invincible, I’d be right over! But with God’s grace, I can change and that’s one good way to strengthen all of us.

“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” —2 Corinthians 9:7

Chasing the Boston Marathon

*Even if you meet the qualifying times Boston posts to get into the race, nobody knows until September what time “squeakers” have to run to make it into the Boston Marathon. Squeakers are people like me who are not more than 5 min under the qualifying time. My time might work or it might not. May run another soon to try snagging a better time.