On Better Footing

Ugly swollen foot, ugly shoe

Last Wednesday while unloading stuff from my car, I brought my rolling duffel bag into the foyer of my mother's house and then went out for another load.  And promptly rammed my right foot into the wheels of the duffel bag, the only part that is hard.  At the time it happened, it hurt like hell, but I have cracked my 5th toes multiple times and it usually hurts for a few days and then slowly improves.

Here's my foot one week later.  The fourth toe still hurts like hell, the dorsum of the foot is swollen to the mid-foot.  Time to throw in the towel, crumble, fold, go to the RWJ Diagnostic Center across from the street and have an xray done.

Before I even drove back across the street (yes, I drove, my carbon footprint be damned because my real footprint was killing me with every step), the radiologist was calling Karen with the results. 

A non-displaced fracture near the base of the fourth toe.

That's all.  For all the swelling, all the pain, that's it? 

But the promise that the podiatrist would give me a nice shoe that would make walking a lot better and colleagues who will rearrange my afternoon schedule so that I could go to Foot & Ankle Group's Bordentown office won me over.

So with directions based solely on landmarks alone (no address for the GPS), I drove past Town & Country, past the Irish pub and into the parking lot between two small professional buildings, carrying the CD of my xray but no cell phone.

Dr. Clinch, whose name I've seen her consultant notes on patients and whose handwriting is difficult at times to parse out, was nice enough to wait after the end of her office hours just to see me.  She said the xray looked a lot better than my foot actually did, and even went back to have a second look after she saw all the swelling on the back of my foot and pressed along the 4th MT, making me nearly howl.  Possible stress fracture, nice - but both the toe and the stress fracture are treated by using the hideous Velcro shoe.

The difference in my hobble with the butt ugly shoe is phenomenal.  Major happiness.  Major decrease in pain.  Major decrease in crabbiness and the desire to rip others' heads off.  Total win all around.

Sometimes it pays to listen to one's health care providers.