Broken Bones And A Road To Recovery That Runs Through Flavortown
We are fortunate to have had so many personal successes during this long pandemic. Our oldest graduated from high school and began her freshman year in college. Our middle one got his learner’s permit and made the JV baseball team. I helped create and launch a new podcast, and I converted the empty, unfinished space beneath the stairs into a new storage closet.
We also put together a consecutive run of family game nights for the ages. Clue, Uno, Scattergories, Exploding Kittens, Phase 10, Poker, Pictionary, Charades, Spoons, BS, SkipBo, FunDominoes, and SpotIt, just to name a few. Parcheesi, by the way, is not easily adapted for five players. Don’t even try it. Trust me.
Our youngest and I even got to know Guy Fieri. You know who I’m talking about. The blond, frosted tip host of “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.” The long-tenured incumbent Mayor of Flavortown.
Okay, so we’ve never actually met him, but we watched so much “Triple D” during the pandemic that we can tell whether Guy is phoning it in about a dish or whether he really, really enjoys it. Here’s a hint. Don’t get distracted by the sayings. Ignore every “Nice work, chef” and “That is Capital T Tasty.” Look instead for how much he goes back for seconds and thirds with his fingers. That’s when you know.
Why did you watch so many episodes of “Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives” during the pandemic? you might ask.
I’ll get to that. It has to do with the above picture.
That’s our youngest on the left.
Running.
I’ve written about running before. The first post I ever wrote for this blog was about that very subject. I bragged about our daughter, the sprinter, and how our middle child, the oldest boy, was beating us in 5Ks. Back then, eight years ago, I had this to say about our youngest:
Our four-year-old, the youngest, does not yet know how to tie his shoes, and his personal records are generally measured by how far he can run without falling down.
We’ve run a number of races together in the years since. Race for the Cure. Annual Turtle Trots during summer vacation. The Hard Cider Run in Virginia. The middle child generally beats us all, and the youngest, now fully able to tie his shoes, races with us.
In his last year of elementary school, he signed up for a cross country club. In their first meet, as the rest of the runners emerged from the woods, racing toward the finish, there was no sight of him. The minutes passed. A few of us looked at each other. Not yet concerned, but definitely curious. Where could he be?
We waited. And waited.
Eventually, he and a teammate ran into view, and they raced toward the finish.
There he goes, on the left.
I asked him later what happened, and he told me that he and his teammate had seen another runner struggling. They stopped to help him. And to cheer him up and encourage him.
Our youngest has always run his races at his own pace, as all children, and especially the youngest, do.
Okay, but what does any of this have to do with Guy Fieri?
To be honest, the two of us have had a soft spot for the guy for some time. The rest of our family doesn’t get it, but Guy has seen us at our worst. A few years ago, our youngest and I fell victim to a stomach bug. Then came the day when we could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. When the idea of food was not so repulsive but, rather, something we might enjoy some day soon. We were spread out on the floor, surfing channels on the television and trying to get our energy back, and we happened upon Fieri and a Triple D marathon. He was in Minnesota, at an Italian place, and they were making chicken Parmesan. It looked perfect and delicious. That episode led to another. We watched, episode after episode, and, during the course of the day, we became our better selves.
Then, years later, in April of 2020, a month-and-a-half into the pandemic, our youngest, now in middle school, went for a bike ride. He started going down a hill a little too fast for his comfort, and he tried bailing out into the grass beside the road. He hit the ground and rolled, and in that process he broke his tibia.
And his fibula.
And that’s what they call a tib-fib fracture.
If you’ve had a child who’s had a bad break, you know that nighttimes are awful. You know how hard it is for them to get comfortable and fall asleep. You know those times in the night when there’s nothing you can do to ease the pain and just how grateful you are for any distraction you can give them.
Like a visit from an old friend.
Enter Guy Fieri and his nightly Triple D marathons. Our youngest, with his leg propped up on cushions on the downstairs couch, and me, lying on the floor beside him. We watched. Episode after episode. And as his road to recovery took him through Flavortown, our son forgot about his pain.
I’m not sure we could have made it through the nights that followed any other way.
Mr. Mayor, if you’re reading, thank you.
His cast came off weeks later, and he had a walking boot for another month. When that came off, he had a noticeable limp. His run, if he even tried, was more of an awkward skip. The doctor said this would last a couple of weeks. When it lasted longer, I started to worry.
But a year later here we are.
Our youngest is working on his personal fitness merit badge for Scouts. Just as Triple D had been our evening ritual months ago, our new routine for a few months is this.
Running.
When he runs ahead of me, when he really turns it on, it’s hard for me to keep up. But I’m also content to stop and watch him. To try to get a picture of him.
His stride is perfect.
He is just fine.
I get the picture. It’s a little blurry, but it’s a keeper.
Our good friend, Guy Fieri, might say of this pandemic success, “This is off the chain!”
I look at our youngest, racing on, and I know that I am, for sure, really, really enjoying this moment.
Then I take a deep breath and try to catch up.