Adventures

Bear’s First Thanksgiving & Maddux’s First Trip to Virginia

Happy belated Thanksgiving! This year was a little special for us because it was Bear’s first Thanksgiving, which also ended up being Maddux’s first trip to my aunt’s house in Roanoke, V.A. It also meant, it was Maddux’s first really long car ride with me, and his first extended stay at anyone’s house.

First lets start with Thanksgiving. My aunt and one of her dogs, and Bear and I, participated in the Drumstick Dash in downtown Roanoke on Thanksgiving Day. It was so much fun! We walked the 5K with thousands of others. My very creative aunt made the dogs, and us, turkey headbands. I was so surprised Bear actually wore his through the whole walk. It feel off a few times, but he really didn’t fuss too much with it – despite him looking unhappy in the photos.

 

Bear had been to my aunt’s farm in September over Labor Day weekend when we got our paw-print tattoos, but Maddux had never been. Maddux had also never been this far away from home for this long of a period of time. He’s spend time at a friend’s house with me, but that was just a night or two. Not five nights, which turned into seven night. (More on why that changed in a moment.)

He did great! For the most part he got along with all the other dogs and he enjoyed being off leash doing farm chores and running around. I was so proud of him. He made himself right at home and sort of just fit right in with everyone else in the family. It was adorable.

Besides watching him run around in the field playing with one of my aunt’s dogs, I think my favorite thing was his absolutely love for a blanket my great-grandmother had crocheted. He loved that thing and slept on it, played on it and really snuggled into it. It was adorable.

Bear also did really well for the most part. He really enjoyed taking walks around my aunt’s property and playing fetch with a stick. At one point we were moving a large branch we were going to use for a project and before we could pick it up, Bear ran over, put one of the stick in his mouth and started dragging it across the lawn. It was hilarious, and of course, I didn’t have my phone with me to take a photo.

They both made themselves right at home at my aunt’s house. It was awesome.

So now about the reason our five night stay turned into seven. I had taken off the Monday after Thanksgiving, because I figured I would avoid traffic on Sunday. Monday came and of course, which is what I did last time, too, I didn’t want to go home. I don’t get to see my aunt and uncle much, and I miss them, so leaving is always tough. Since I had more vacation time the needed to be used up by the end of the year, and I didn’t have anything pressing happening at work, I asked my boss if I could take off Tuesday, too and stay another day. That would give me an extra day with my aunt and uncle, and then I would just drive home Tuesday.

Well, Monday morning, I was walking down stairs, tripped and fell, landing right on my ankle. It hurt a lot and my ankle started to swell a little but I didn’t think much of it. I took some Tylenol and we continued our day, which wasn’t overly active where anything would get strained. It was bothering me to put weight on it, but figured it was just normal and by Tuesday morning, it would just feel better. After all, that is what has always happened in the past.

I was wrong.

This morning, I woke up and couldn’t put weight on it. I couldn’t walk the dogs, and coming down the stairs was a major issue. It was also much, much more swollen than it was the day before. My fear was that it was broken. After debating about it, we went to urgent care. They were super nice and did an x-ray. The doctor walked in and said, “the good news is that it’s not broken. The bad news is that it’s really, really badly sprained.”

Great.

His directions were to ice it and stay off it for 48 hours, and then do ice and heat. Also, take Alieve for the next several days with Tylenol if the pain intensified. When I told him I had an 8 hour drive ahead of me back to New Jersey, he was not very, ummm, please and suggested against it. The compromise finally was that when we got back to my aunt’s house I would try driving for about 45 minutes locally and see how my foot felt. If it didn’t hurt, I would leave. If it did hurt, I would stay, let it rest the remainder of the day, ice it continuously and just not do anything.

I’m writing this blog post sitting in a chair at my aunt’s dining room table with my foot elevated on a foot rest with an ice pack on it. So, you can tell how great the test drive went. When I told the universe that I didn’t want to go home, this was not exactly what I was thinking. Although, I guess it was better than when I used to come visit and my car used to get hit. Seriously, every.single.time. One time it was just sitting in a parking lot while we were eating dinner and got hit.

At least it wasn’t broken, which was my major fear!

 

2 thoughts on “Bear’s First Thanksgiving & Maddux’s First Trip to Virginia

    1. Thanks! Yes, they have been great – my boss is thankfully very understanding. Plus, taking time off is really unusual for me.

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