In the third week of November 2020, I ruptured my Achilles tendon.  Full tear.  I’d like to be remembered as a hero.  I was playing tennis but I’m not a “tennis player”.  I just say yes when friends ask me to be active.  Ok, fine.  Competitive.  If I wanted to “be active” I would run.  And you won’t catch me running unless you are a fast walker.

I hadn’t played tennis in years.  But my husband and I used to play quite a bit, so I did that thing you do as you get older.  How good I was back then minus how many years it’s been since I’ve played divided by the ability of the person I’m playing with against.  We were those obnoxious newlyweds that would get up at 7am on a Saturday to get court time in the middle of winter in New York City.  I’m surprised I didn’t rupture my Achilles back then.  If anyone deserved it, it was me, in my all whites, walking up 2^nd Avenue.

And I’m an athlete.  Or a former athlete.  I don’t know what to call myself in my 40s and the math equation doesn’t work for this as well.  I started playing organized sports at five years old and played through college.  Office softball teams and city volleyball and basketball leagues made it easy to use “athlete” throughout my 20s.  I literally still had a uniform.  Then, in my early 30s, I felt like I wasn’t far enough away to set the title down.  But it’s been at least 10 years since I ran a play or guarded another person.  “Former athlete” sounds like I forgot how basketballs work.  So, I’m stuck, mumbling to myself about the sports I used to play and accepting invitations from friends on weekends.

I thought I could handle an hour of tennis on a Saturday at the end of a year that by all accounts deserved its own Achilles rupture.  I was offered 60 minutes of instruction from a tennis pro, with two friends who could play.  If anyone was in good hands, it was me.  And I was in my favorite element at this age.  Athletic competition where I am assumed to be the worst in the group.  Anything and everything I do might be amazing.  Into the net?  She hasn’t done this in a while!  Great shot?  Phenom.  Ample opportunity to impress without the pressure.  Unfortunately, at the end of what was a very breezy 45 minutes of tennis instruction, the pro decided to go amateur and suggested we play a game. In retrospect, I should have offered to lead the group in some cool down stretching.  But that would have required the mental capacity to cool anything down when winning was on the line.  Historically, when offered competition, I’ve been known to black out in a competitive haze.  I’m sure it’s some combined effort of my genetics, playing organized sports since 5 years old, being 6 feet tall and generally playing on winning teams.  But I’m in it to win it.  (I’ll tell you the laser tag story where I crushed a bunch of 10-year-old boys later.)  And if you fall halfway through whatever we are in the midst of, I may or may not help you up.  I mean, I want to be the sort of person who helps you up, but I also want to win.  So, the scramble to help you is in direct competition with the trophy.  And that’s a photo finish kind of tie I don’t want to judge.

To make matters worse, he divided us men verses women.  So, obviously the historical documentation of all women throughout time was on the line.  Point, them.  Point, us.  Point, them.  Point, them.  Point, us.  Point, us.  Point, us.  Pop.  Just as we pulled ahead, I was pulled down.  The irony is not lost on me.  What is lost on me is the expected behavior of someone who recently tore their Achille’s tendon.  I did not fall to the ground, screaming and clutching my lower extremity.  Instead, I suspended myself in a crouched position, like a runner at the starting line.  Even injured, I look like I’m trying to win.  I swiveled my head completely from left to right, looking over each shoulder for the person who ran up and slammed their tennis racket down on my heel.  Which is exactly what it felt like.  Something was wrong, but oddly wrong.  Not emergency wrong.  There was no one behind me, but there were, like, ten 8-year-olds in a clinic on the court next to us.  I looked them over fast and decided who it could have been.  Distracted by not even knowing if I was hurt, I sat slowly on my left hip and pulled my legs around in front of me, staring at my right leg.  I realized then that the three people on my court and a few others had run over to me.  Emergency run.  When I described what I felt, half the group nodded and confirmed that I tore my Achilles.  The other half was unconvinced because of how calm I looked.  How impossible it would be to have a tear and just be sitting here.  One of my friends who was furthest away from me on the other side of the court confirmed that he heard a loud pop.  Undeniable.  It was torn.  I started to move like I wanted to get up and they jumped to help me, knowing that my ability to stand would confirm whether it was torn or not.  I folded up my left knee, rolled back over my left hip and into the runner’s position that started this whole conversation in the first place.  I was aware of my right ankle, exposed behind me and stood up with help from a friend, placing my right foot on the ground.  Just then, the second group, shaking their heads, confirmed, “she would never be able to do that if she tore her Achilles.”  I gingerly sat on a bench nearby, waiting for what would end up being a totally useless bag of ice, while horrible stories of other Achilles tears were told over my head.  The bag of ice had barely formed around my ankle when I decided that maybe I should get out of there and seek some help.  My friend held his forearm out at a 90-degree angle for me to use like a railing as I hobbled across the neighboring court, up and down two flights of stairs and out to my friend’s car.  No one, including me, thought it was torn.  I never should have been able to do the walking and the climbing.  But also no one could explain the pop.  Even in that moment, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying winning this injury.  If there was a competition of who got hurt the best, I had this in the bag.  During my acceptance speech, I’d have them play the security video of me ascending the stairs on a huge screen behind my head. 

Sliding into the passenger’s seat of my friend’s car, I remember being very aware of not wanting her to hit any bumps on the way home.  I noticed because the only other time I felt that way was on the way home from the hospital after delivering my twins.  Do not hit a bump, unless you want to die, sir.  I rarely called my husband sir, but sometimes the moment just called for it.  I was so aware that if something hit my foot or made my foot hit the interior of the car, I might be very, very upset.  But I also didn’t feel any pain from just sitting there, so maybe I needed to just relax already.  We were about a 15-minute drive from my house, so it seemed like the perfect time to talk about our kids after school activities and other general nonsense.  I was distracting myself and myself was totally on board.  At some point, maybe halfway home I realized that I was talking really fast.  I had follow-up questions to whatever my friend was sharing and I cared more about having additional follow up questions than actually listening for answers.  I remember wondering if she thought I sounded as odd as I felt.  But she didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, so I continued, like you do when you’ve had two too many drinks and you think the sober person doesn’t notice.  But they definitely notice. 

When she pulled into my driveway, my husband and daughters were waiting and pacing by the side door that connected the driveway to the house.  My husband came quickly around the front of the car to my door, opened it and cradled both arms underneath mine to lift me out of the car.  I remember being surprised at how much support I needed.  So much more than I needed to get in just 15 minutes earlier.  Being a mom is tough, but never have I felt growing physical pain just from talking about my kids.  Listening to them tell me about who did what in the cafeteria?  Maybe.  But not general chit chat.  I think it must have been something more, because four steps later, I passed out. 

I came to, mid-argue with my husband that I didn’t pass out.  I wanted to get up off the ground and would someone please call off the approaching sirens, because I was fine and everyone was making a big deal about nothing.  I was literally pushing him back from me and forcing his hand, that had saved head from smashing into the driveway, away from my body.  This is the classic, he-said/she-said part of the story that I have vehemently denied.  Unfortunately, both of my daughters, who had moments earlier thought I was dead, confirmed that I did, in fact, say all of it.  In their deep shock, horror and sadness of almost losing their only mother, they still had the wherewithal to say, “mom, you’re wrong”.

The fire department arrived first and there was a brief chat about trying to take my shoe off, followed by my deep awareness of the pain coming from my right ankle.  It took three large men and a lot of me yelling “there’s no chance we are taking off my shoe” to load me into the ambulance and close the door.  Alone.  In a non-Covid year, my husband would have come with me, but just being in an ambulance felt oddly like the relief I was seeking when I passed out.  I was okay to go it alone.

Once I got strapped in and joked a little with the two women caring for me, they felt reassured enough to settle comfortably back into what they were probably discussing on the way over.  I had been in the back of an ambulance once before and was similarly not in need of intervention while we road.  You’d like to think this would be a good thing, but it actually feels like a total rip off.  Where was the drama?  The intrigue?  The suspense?  Sure, I got the siren, blazing through town.  But to just lay here felt a lot like my sister and I playing fast food restaurant out of the windows of our bedrooms when we were kids.  We could say “pull around to the next window to get your food.”  But there was no next window.  There was no food.  I didn’t even get my blood pressure taken.  Instead, I got to listen to a story about this one’s son and his on again/off again girlfriend while this other one promised that they’d never last.

I expected the ER to look like something out of a sci-fi thriller, where every patient is quarantined off in a Covid-free bubble situation from everyone else.  But things looked pretty normal to me once we got inside.  Another disappointment.  I was frustrated that all of the action seemed to happen back at the tennis facility.  Did I appreciate it?  At least I got to keep my rolling bed from the ambulance, because I had no plans to ever move my leg again.

As the nurses started coming over, asking me hundreds of overlapping questions, repeated by every new face, I was suddenly very aware that I had come straight from an hour of tennis and hadn’t showered.  I took a moment of thanks for the masks that everyone was wearing.  Then searched inside my bag for lotion, scented Chapstick or a total change of clothes to help the situation.  When I told my sister this the next day, she confirmed that I was the only person on Earth who would be thinking about being hospital fresh while I laid in the emergency room with a torn Achilles.    Fine.  I’m the type of person that would rub a piece of mint gum on myself like perfume if it meant that I didn’t smell like a locker room for the medical professionals who were going to put me back together.  Sue me.

It took 6 promises over four hours for me to receive some pain medication.  I paired it with the granola bar in my bag and before scarfing it down, realized it was both breakfast and lunch.  When the doctor finally came in, he asked that I try to press my foot into his hand.  I did.  Then he said, “your Achilles is torn.  You’ll have to see an orthopedist on Monday.  I’ll get you the name and number of someone I recommend.” That couldn’t have been it.  I looked to the nurse on my left and she nodded in agreement.  Or maybe just finished counting the remaining hours in her shift in her head.  Either way, she was on board with whatever was happening in the room.  By the time I turned back to challenge his diagnosis, the doctor was gone.

While I waited, the pain meds kicked in and I wondered if maybe he had it all wrong.   Or maybe I had forgotten a bigger examination and hallucinated the thousands of questions.  Things were starting to feel less dramatic.  Like all these hours in here were just a misunderstanding and this was probably just a sprain.  Look!  I could move my ankle.  I was pressing the air without difficulty.  Could someone with a torn Achilles really press the air?  I doubt it.  I walked up and down the stairs at the tennis facility, remember?  The doctor was wrong.  I was feeling better.  One motivational speech in my head and another handful of those pain killers and I could get right up off this bed.  Just watch.

I shared all of this with him when he came back, and he gave me ten minutes of undivided doctor attention to fully explain everything that made this an Achilles tear.  He couldn’t tell me the severity of the tear.  The orthopedist would do that.  But he reminded me of all the other factors that they considered outside of the foot press.  The details and examinations that they had performed.  The details that my pain killers might have muted over.  He described the long, painful road of recovery ahead and the need to see an orthopedist as a next step.  That these next few weeks would be very hard, and the months would feel long, but that it would heal, like all things do.  That he would call the orthopedist he recommended right now, personally, and see if he could make me the appointment for Monday morning, since it was already Saturday night.  That I seemed very strong.  That I would get through this.  That these moments are very difficult and unexpected and might take some time, especially sitting here alone, to process.  To take my time and that my husband was on his way inside to pick me up.  Then he asked if I had any questions and I had none.  

He walked away and I lay my head back slowly into the pillow with an overwhelmed sigh in disbelief.  There was so much to take in, so much to consider and yet all I could think about was how much time he had sat with me.  How that never happened.  How he stopped and stayed and explained everything and even took time to ask if I had any questions.  All that time.  I was cloudy from the painkillers but there was one thing I knew for certain.  The only thing written in my chart that night would be “Smells like sweat.  Recommend a shower.”