Ice, ice baby: Post surgery treats include meatloaf, Twinkie’s in a blender

At the end of January, I went out on a very simple assignment. I should have been back to the office in ten minutes.
Instead, I didn’t get back for a month. And it’s all because of ice.
While usually I’m out covering the hard-edged cops and courts beat in Manistee County, a quick jaunt up to Sands Park to take pictures of first-graders from Jefferson Elementary ice skating seemed like a nice change of pace.
A Norman Rockwell painting come alive.
Everything was perfect. The forty-odd kids gliding across the ice, cries of joy and squeals of laughter. Proud parents clicking pictures. Snow gently falling.
Everything was great except the big goon with the camera around his neck, arms wheeling, legs kicking, landing flat on his back. Mostly on his right elbow.
That goon, of course, was me.
I had spent the last fifteen minutes snapping pictures of the kid skaters who would pop right back up after they fell. I used to be that limber too.
Not anymore.
We like to think we can control everything, that we are powerful enough to will accidents not to happen. Untrue. Anything can happen at any time. It’s the chaotic nature of the universe.
When I took my spill, I was just about off the surface of the ice into the safety of the parking lot. My right foot glided quickly across the ice and I lost all control. I fell. I fell hard. The contents of my pockets flew out. A pen skittered two dozen feet across the surface of the ice. My notepad ended up in a snow bank. Mothers gasped. The kids didn’t seem to notice. They kept right on skating and falling and laughing and getting up.
I’m very proud I didn’t cuss in front of the kiddies. I waited until I got into my car, turned up some punk rock music really loud and let the punishing gods have it. Every foul word I’ve ever learned (and I know them all) poured from my mouth. My elbow was screaming with pain. It felt like someone bored a hole at the tip and poured in a bucket of red hot razor blades.
My next stop was the emergency room at West Shore Medical Center where I was told I had cracked a small piece of bone off my elbow and tore the triceps muscle. It would require surgery to reattach it.
“What happened to the days of hopping up and dusting myself off?” I thought to myself.
Only 33 years old and I am having those insidious intimations of mortality. Next thing you know, I’ll be breaking a hip coming out of the Bingo Hall.
I haven’t had a surgery since I got my tonsils out when I was 5 years old. Back then, for treats, I was a Twinkie man. Sure, I ate all the broccoli and Brussels sprouts Mom heaped on my plate when I was a kid, but always with images of the cowboy mascot, Twinkie the Kid, dancing in my head while I waited for dessert time. During my recovery, I couldn’t have any because I wasn’t allowed solid food. Mom’s ingenious solution: put the Twinkie’s in the blender.
Delicious.
When you’re a kid and have faithful trust in grown-ups, going in for a medical procedure is no big deal. Now, with a big old adult head spinning with worries, it’s a different story.
But Dr. Robert Barry, the orthopedic surgeon who had the pleasure of slicing into me, is a cool character and allayed any fears. In fact, everyone I dealt with over at West Shore Medical Center was great throughout the whole ordeal, from the first emergency room visit to the surgery.
So they knifed my elbow, stitched it up and sent me home with all sorts of delicious painkillers and a note that said I didn’t have to go back to work for a nice long while.
My arm, in a hard splint I couldn’t take off, was more or less dead weight on the side of my body. I couldn’t drive or do any household chores, though I’m not the best at getting to those when I’m healthy. So, mostly I just lazed in my Vicodin haze watching cartoons for a month. For a treat, my wife, who is a vegetarian, made me a meatloaf, an adventure she chronicled here in the News Advocate. I was about to ask for a Twinkie smoothie for dessert but didn’t want to push it.
Alas, my Vicodin vacation was destined to come to an end. Now, I’m back to the harsh realities of life. I still can’t bend my elbow properly -- I can barely bring a fork to my mouth -- but the good rehabilitation folks down in the basement of the hospital are helping me along with that.
And even back in real life, there are treats to be had. Meatloaf and Twinkie smoothies are nice, but the weather has been lately too.
It’s been especially great watching all that slippery ice melt.