I have come to appreciate the little things in life—striding around the apartment in a foul mood looking for one’s hairbrush; wearing boots; driving stick shift. This perspective and philosophy dates from last night, when I, blithely walking through my apartment, brought my left foot up against our vacuum cleaner with the force of an asteroid hitting the Antarctic ice sheet. Unfortunately, while the rock is harder than the ice sheet, and has the advantage of snow, my toes are far softer than the vacuum cleaner and snow was nowhere to be seen.
So I spent the remainder of last night tucked up with a movie and a piece of pizza, and today I hobble about in slip-on shoes, wincing whenever decorum or safety insists I cease hopping from place to place on my good foot. My bad foot is rather interesting. My pinkie and “ring” toes are like wee fat sausages, and bend slowly and painfully, tho’ under their own power. The rest of my foot is stiff and tense from protecting its invalids. Currently I am trying to figure out whether they’re sprained or broken, and whether to consult a physician.
Of course, I’ve never had a broken bone - the worst injury I’ve ever sustained required 5 stitches - and if I do turn out to have a broken bone, I shudder to think I shall have to acknowledge that I broke a bone by stubbing my toe. Rasserframmit.
Comments
Consult! Consult!
Ack! You should consult a physician. It’s easy to break a toe by stubbing it, and if the broken toe isn’t set properly, toe weirdness can result. Or, if fortune favors you, it might heal just fine. But you should definitely get it checked out, to be on the safe side.
Re: Consult! Consult!
I called a nurse, and she said if I want I can come in for an x-ray, but she says all they usually do if it IS broken is tape (“buddy-tape”) it to unbroken toes—so if I get some med.tape and do that myself, it should be fine.
Weaklings
I read your later ‘Magic Shoe’ comment, and all I have to say is that treating broken toes is for weaklings. I’ve broken toes a number of times, and the only problem it’s left me with is toes that are a little jaggy in the wrong directions—as if toes were normal-looking or something to start with. The last time I seriously messed up a toe was during an inadvisable jump down a flight of stairs in the former casa de Sara, Mike, Jason, and Dennis after an evening of carousing with Mike. It swelled up and started speaking in tongues, including several I couldn’t even identify with the help of the Documenta Geigy. You should suck it up. Untreated injuries build character. Even for princesses.
Re: Weaklings
Neener. Wasn’t really worried about the toe so much as the rest of me—the rest of me that was rapidly becoming one knot of horrible muscle pain from moving around the toe (twist left foot 80 degrees, angle up so only heel touches ground, et cetera). It’s really not a matter of TREATING the toe, as much as stopping it from keeping me immobile, slow, and back-pain-ridden.
So neener!