Just A Small Sample

I had to remove a little bit of me and insert it into a plastic tube last night.

A part of me that has been succoured on my blood and the food I intake daily. I’ve walked around with it. Slept with it. Worked hard and played hard with it (according to my old school Principal’s motto).

And then this morning I dropped it off at the Doctor’s reception desk without even a fond farewell or a by-your-leave. We didn’t even exchange a hug.

Abandoned. Orphaned. Destined for some white coated scientist’s lab... Some Uni post grad who’ll dissect it, analyse it, microscope it and then... gulp... see if something grows on it. I have sent it out into the big wide world with neither my protection nor my blessing.

Well. It was beginning to be more trouble than it was worth. And at the end of the day dodgy toenails are notoriously hard to love.

Over the years it had become ridged, thick and ugly looking. More like a dog’s dewclaw than a toenail. By and large I ignored it. I clipped it along with its brothers same as usual but bestowed no special fondness upon it.

I was a bit ashamed of it really. Least said soonest mended.

But then the discoloration began. A dark browniness. A yellowing. A muddy blackening of parts.

It was undoubtedly a dirty protest.

An ignored child seeking bad attention.

It was a foolish manoeuvre because now things have been set in motion that I just can’t stop. The doctor requested a sample. A clipping. I had no choice but to separate us.

It all now depends on the lab results which could take 5 to 8 weeks to come back. There’s a possibility that it is merely dystrophic / atrophic growth – I can’t remember exactly what she said as I was hypnotized by the small wooden airplane that was hanging down from her ceiling on a wire. If that’s the case there is nothing she, the doctor, can do. I’ll just have to live with it and embrace my ability to climb tall trees in my bare feet. Think of the fruit I could gather for my kids!

But there is a real possibility that it is a fungal infection. Something unwholesome living off the fruits of my body’s labour. If that’s the case then it’ll mean 3 months of medication. What exactly I don’t know. But she mentioned “possible side effects”. Again, what I don’t know. And I didn’t think to ask. Curse that damned airplane!

I’m betting it’s not a sudden ability to climb walls with my hands and feet and swing from skyscrapers with webs that I can magically produce from glands in my wrists.

It’ll be constipation. Or sleeplessness. Or itchiness. Or all three.

*Sigh*

Take care of your toenails, people, before they take care of you...

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...

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.