Friday, March 22, 2019

It's just one toe!

Note to readers: This is mostly supposed to be a funny entry with sarcasm everywhere.  And, this is not a good post to read while eating.  You have now been warned.

Over a month ago, I noticed my little toes on both feet hurt a bit, like they had rug burn.  I attributed this to my daily activity of getting up from sitting on the rug in our bedroom, in bare feet, as a daily confirmation that I still can get up.

But then the left foot felt fine and the right foot hurt more. We went to a store and I was wearing my Ness devices on each leg - they shoot signals for me to lift my toes. All of a sudden I realized pain was shooting from the right Ness between my little toe and the toe next to it. "Let's go home! What is happening?!"

Upon our arrival home, I tore off my right shoe and sock, grabbed my foot, and looked. Wow! Yikes! What in the world was going on with my little toe?  It had a thing between it and the next toe - a big, white thing. Internet research confirmed it was a blister although none of the photos looked quite like it.

Two days later I called the doctor I see every six months to check out how well, or not well, I am doing, and to show him that I am still altering the course of whatever disease I have despite the fact that Ampyra, the main medicine I take, is not supposed to do much. Apparently, I'm a science experiment.

A week after I phoned my doctor, I saw my doctor. This thing looked pretty much the same as when I called, even though I had soaked my foot in Epson salts again and again and again... He looked at the thing and declared it to be a blister, and asked me to come back two weeks later, after wearing different shoes so my toes didn't rub together, so I could see him and another guy who works with him.

By this point I had stopped using my Ness devices because pain constantly shooting between my toes is not my idea of a fun time. On the treadmill at physical therapy, without my cool Ness devices, I slowed to 2.2 mph for 10 minutes. At about 9 minutes it felt like I was dragging my right leg along for the ride - and it looked that way, too. By 10 minutes it was more of a slow, lopsided, semi-left-footed turtle hop. I should have video taped it.

Two weeks after the first appointment, I returned to my doctor so he and another doctor could look at the thing.  He took one look and said, "that doesn't look like the same thing!"  The other guy there nodded in agreement and told me I needed to pad my toes to prevent them from rubbing. Then we all looked at Internet pictures to see if one looked like my toe, and my doctor thought the thing now was a wart covered by a blister... and you should know that the Internet pictures of these things are not pretty.  Avoid eating when looking at things like this.

And also, I asked my doctor about my knee which hurts. He had a theory about that, and that a knee brace would help. But I thought about that and determined that assuming the thing goes away, I can't wear a knee brace and then cover it with a Ness device. It wouldn't just be a bad fashion statement.  The Ness signal just wouldn't get through a knee brace. That's a definite problem. So I left with pain jabbing into my right toe and knee pain on my left side. I was not happy!

At home, I wrapped my toe in gauze and then looked at the toe plus gauze sticking out sideways from my foot like it was an extra toe.  And then I tried to put on a shoe.  Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I removed the shoe, the gauze, and decided to wait to see what the next doctor said.

A week and a half later I saw a dermatologist. He was awesome. He took my toe and looked (why would anyone want to be a dermatologist and look at things like this all day?) and quickly knew what it was.  Millions of these are diagnosed each year.  Lucky me!  He sees them daily.  Think of a sugar ice cream cone.  What I have, still covered by a blister, is a corn, but it is shaped like an ice cream cone where the pointy part is on the inside of my toe and it feels like someone is repeatedly jamming a needle into my toe.  And along with the corn, I was told I have a slight bone abnormality on that toe. Thanks for those genes, Dad!

So the cure?  He told me it will go away on its own in "a while."  And so of course I asked, "What is a while?"  "A month or so, if you get your foot measured, and get new shoes so your toes are not rubbing against each other, and toe separators to help with that."

The next day I went to the specialty shoe store where they measured my foot and showed me seven different types of shoes.  Two were ok, although I have an average width foot that is now in a really wide shoe so my toes can move.  The other 5 I cannot believe anyone would buy - ugly!

So here I am.  I feel like I should somehow be thankful since a few other things have happened this week to other people, and these other things are much worse than my toe problem.

And yet here I am, with two new pairs of extra wide shoes, toe separators, toe pain, knee pain, and my husband asking why I don't write a blog about my March Madness picks. I told him my blog is about MS and faith.  He said I could write about my faith in my March Madness picks. That is not going to happen here (I don't have a lot of faith in them - it's not been a good start!).

I guess I do have faith that somehow God is with me now, but really God?  Ha ha. I could use some divine intervention.  So could my three friends who are going through different things this week.  God is with them also.

Really, at the end of the day, what I have realized is that one little toe can certainly cause a lot of trouble and change everything going as planned, to everything being in complete disarray and causing pain to a person who has a low tolerance for pain.

Peace.  It's here - somewhere. Hold onto it for me.