Tic Tac Toe

I have managed to acquire yet another noble injury (some of you may recall my previous dip into the murky world of foot injury at the end of 2006).

Skipping, as is my wont, round the house yesterday afternoon with nought on my feet but a good pair of woollen socks my foot erroneously came into contact with the corner of a book shelf.

One humungous snap crackle and pop later... and suddenly I had a beautifully purpled little toe that had ballooned to the size of a New World red grape.

Folks, it’s going to be one helluva vintage.

Though doubting the efficacy of the family doctor Karen nonetheless packed me off to the surgery this morning and he more or less fulfilled my every expectation.

Yes it’s probably broken / fractured but there is little that can be done. It needs to be strapped to the next toe and caressed with ice. It was also recommended that I swallow whatever pain relief product I desired and, most important of all, keep the foot elevated and rested as much as possible.

Fat chance.

I’ve already spent the first 90 minutes at work this morning chasing carpenters, electricians and painters around the building.

A nice warm Shiraz anyone?

Boot Hill

It is today that, with a heavy heart, I say goodbye to a faithful pair of old boots who have stuck by me through thick and thin, carried me up and down ladders, skipped me passed aggressive street vendors and protected my delicate littlie tootsies from the offensive wattle and daub of dog turds for the last 18 months.

Their time has come. Much as I love them I am now too embarrassed to be seen (dead) in them. Click on the photo above and you will see why.

Scuffed. Ripped. Split. Collapsed. The polish corrupted into white streaks. They have had their day.

Instead they are to be replaced by a great stonking pair of toe-tector Cat boots of the highest calibre (above right). We’re talking industrial safety wear here. We’re talking boots that can crush hand grenades beneath their heels. Boots that can kick completely through Kevlar body armour. Boots that would make the American military weep in ecstatic envy.

World, I’m a-coming to get yer.

Booted and suited.

Leathered up like a good ‘un.

Down at heel but up with the best.

You can all kiss my eyeholes.

X-Ray Vision

Despite still being laid low with an awful dose of this year’s variant of the flu virus Karen very kindly gave me a lift to the local hospital yesterday afternoon so I could keep my appointment with the highly esteemed foot specialist... regular readers of this blog will know of my recent foot problems; irregular readers can bone up here.

Cue half an hour of being sent one way and then the other due to an IT breakdown which meant the receptionists were reduced to using paper and high-lighter pen to impose some sort of order on the hordes of injured and diseased that were clamouring for palliative attention in front of their desks.

Cue half an hour of sitting in a waiting room that positively howled with the décor of an Eastern Block abattoir...

...until I was finally called into a radiation proof room to have my sorry-looking feet X-rayed from a multitude of various angles and uncomfortable positions.

Then we had another half an hour wait while the specialist looked at the resultant images before I was eventually called in to see him.

And the final diagnosis?

Well, certainly I have hallux valgus but the condition (at the moment) doesn’t warrant an operation of any kind or intervention aside from decent shoes and insoles. The pain I was in, dear people, was actually caused by the fact I’d had two broken bones in my foot! Bones that now – thankfully and miraculously given that I’ve been walking on them for the last 2 months – have healed quite nicely and knitted together very healthily.

Amazing. Especially as I also underwent 4 weeks of fairly rigorous physiotherapy not long after the foot injury first occurred.

No wonder it bloody hurt so much!

Anyway Karen’s being really sweet and says she feels bad that I didn’t get all the sympathy that I deserved at the time so is now intent on giving it to me belatedly.

Me? I’m gonna put my feet up and milk it for all it’s worth!

I’m Never Gonna Dance Again

It’s official. I have abnormal feet.

Persistent pain in the foot I injured a few weeks ago - plus since Sunday new pain inexplicably in my other foot (making the original injury seem like light relief) - forced a return to the doctor’s this morning in an attempt to get to the root of the problem. I mean I’m hobbling about like an old man and am in constant pain. It’s getting ridiculous.

Anyway a brand new surgery meant a brand new doctor (I won’t bore you with the mundane details just accept that I’ve changed my doctor for utterly no controversial reasons at all) and this brand new doctor was certainly on the ball.

Of my foot, in fact.

It seems I’m suffering from hallux valgus resulting in metatarsalgia.

Basically my feet are foobarred.

To paraphrase my doc: the bio-mechanics of my feet are not right resulting in incorrect and ineffective load bearing capacity, bunions, calluses, a lot of pain and worst of all toes that are being pushed outwards and upwards causing cross-overs and yet another obstacle to walking correctly and without pain.

No chance of a quick fix then?

Nope. None at all. I have to see an Orthopaedic specialist at the local hospital (which could take up to 4 months to arrange), buy "orthaheel" insoles and ultimately will have to face surgery if I "still want to be active in 10 year’s time..." In the same breath my doc also warned me that foot operations are not to be entered into lightly as they are invariably very painful and the recovery time is both painful and long. However that option could be years away as yet.

Oh great. At least it won’t spoil Christmas then.

Sigh.

It seems my dancing days are over.

And my chances of winning the London marathon are much reduced...

And for those of you that bothered to follow the links above and read the resulting information: NO I DO NOT WEAR HIGH HEELS!

I've always preferred granny slippers...

Rat Race And Call-Girls

I’ve spent the last two days back at work as my foot, though still twitchy, is much improved. I was quite expecting to be assailed by a huge feeling of depression as I re-entered the rat race after two weeks of relative luxury / torture watching Loose Women on TV (sadly not a fly-on-the-wall expose on UK houses of ill repute) but instead was surprised to find my return to the real world accompanied by a sense of exhilaration and even enjoyment.

It seems I must on some level enjoy being occupied… even if it is with the usual cavalcade of bureaucratic crapness that infests my job like pubic lice in an East End call-girl’s knickers.

Hey back to loose women again! No wonder the re-adjustment was so smooth.

One question though:

Does this mean I’m the "pimp-daddy" for the local council?

My Left Foot

I’ve actually spent the last 5 days at home having been signed off by the doctor due to my pathetic bottom-rung ladder accident as reported here a couple of weeks ago. The doctor’s prognosis was “fore foot sprain” (as opposed to a “four foot sprain” which would have sounded far more impressive) and he prescribed some industrial strength painkillers to dull the agony and sagely recommended that I keep off my feet as much as possible for the next 7 days.

Which I have done as much as I have been able but a return visit yesterday resulted in me being signed off for another week and an appointment for physio made on my behalf via Warwick Hospital. All sounds rather grand and cool, doesn’t it? A workplace based injury. White coated experts fingering every nook and cranny (on my foot that is) and humming to themselves in concerned tones…

If only. The trouble is my injury isn’t cool at all. I stepped awkwardly of the bottom rung of a medium sized ladder for God’s sake! It wasn’t like I fell 150ft into a roiling vat of female pop singers. Worst of all, although the sprain is healing slowly my toes have gone into “spasm”… which means they’ve locked themselves into a position where they’re pointing upwards making me wonder if (pardon the un-PC-ness of this next outburst) “spasm” isn’t short for “spaz mode”. Anyway, the result of all this is that I am unable to walk properly or without pain and because my toes aren’t functioning properly my foot is beginning to turn inwards when I walk. Hence the physio.

I’ve been medically removed from the workplace due to the effects of toe spasm.

I mean really!

No jokes about foot jobs please.

Lame

Got the grumps today.

More trouble with Pocketropolis.com – or rather more trouble with the web host. Basically it’s been off-line since Monday which, for a sad, neurotic, perfectionist writer like me is akin to having both my hands chopped off, my tongue ripped out and my brain lobotomized. Yes, I know that for many of you the latter would be deemed a worthwhile improvement to my character...

And due to a pathetic bottom-rung ladder accident at work I’ve been limping around like Brian Blessed in Long John Silver (only without the booming voice and voluminous beard) since last week. The doctor’s diagnosis was “a badly sprained foot” and recommended copious amounts of Ibuprofen and the application of heat to the injured part, however, all attempts to purchase a foot microwave on eBay have proved fruitless.

Consolation: the BBC’s new sci-fi series Torchwood is excellent. So much better than the continually disappointing Robin Hood....

But more on that later...