A few weeks ago, I pulled a back muscle when I was lifting a case of water. What? Water is heavy. And, sloshy. After it happened, I told my boss that you never realize how much you use your back until you can’t use it anymore.

On Wednesday night my husband suffered a grade 3 rupture of his gastrocnemius, which is a fancy way of saying he badly tore a big muscle in his calf. He was shooting hoops when it happened. Okay, not so much shooting hoops as he was coaching fifth-grade, girl’s basketball. What? Dribbling around 11 year old girls is hard. Especially if you’re 38.

Since then, he has been on crutches and unable to do much. And, let me just say that you never realize how much you use your husband until you can’t use him anymore.

Every single morning, rain, shine, sleet or snow (in Ohio, it’s mostly the rain, sleet and snow part) he walks our dogs. The 11 year old Labrador could probably survive without her daily jaunt, but there is no doubt that she is in such great shape because of my husband, so we like to keep her active.

However, the one year old Labrador, Daisy, needs this exercise. She needs it like I need water, and air and beer.

Every day, my husband walks three miles with the dogs. They run off-leash most of that distance and likely cover twice the ground he does. Then Daisy comes home with her thick tail whacking everything in its path, she grabs a toy, slobbers on my jeans and looks at me as if to say, “I’m just getting warmed up, lady. Let’s play!”

Thanks to my husband’s injury, for the past four days I have been walking the dogs. If you can call it that. It’s more like getting pulled down to the park, letting them off-leash, then running 200 yards through shin-deep snow, in my big, clunky snow boots, to get Daisy because she has run off to steal another dog’s ball.

It is exhausting and after only four days, my body is sore. My left hand is blistered, my ribs feel bruised, I have shin splits and my thigh muscles are like jello. It’s a workout like none other.

I’m actually kind of hoping that I rupture my gastrocnemius.

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