My Left Foot

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I am pretty sure I just broke the little toe on my left foot and it hurts “like sixty”. I slammed the car door on it. In somewhat of a “lame” defense for myself, I will add I have a condition called Transverse Myelitis where I don’t have a lot of feeling in my feet and no spatial awareness of where my left leg is. Think about that. It’s like having a free-range toddler that you have to catch with both hands and lift into the car and strap into place. But at 64, I am apparently a wee bit short on mothering skills.

Anywho, I did not lift my left leg into the car. Since I can drive an automatic car with my right leg I just plum forgot about that extra appendage on the left. And when I noticed the door bounced on something, I figured out it was either my coat or my pocketbook. My bad.

The pain was slow to register. I thought maybe I just mashed the fleshy part of my little toe, which is like saying Twiggy has a big butt. I hoped against hope, thinking maybe I just bruised it. When I finally got my shoe off in the Safeway parking lot and tried to bend my toe, it was a no go. I slowly drove over to Walgreens.

I stood in the “Consultation” line about 10 minutes. There was a growing aching and throbbing. This is good and bad. The good news is it means I am gradually regaining feeling that I lost 10 years ago. The bad news is, yeah, I can now feel things like broken bones.

I waited so long in line, my brain finally kicked into gear. I grabbed my phone and I Googled: How should I treat a broken little toe? The answer was to tape it to the next one, then put your foot up and ice that sucker. Well, okay, it actually said, “ice the intended area” which sounds more like a weather report: “The low will cause icing in the intended areas of Lower Cupcake and East Nowhere.”

By the time I had read the entire six-page blog, the pharmacist was available so I read her the synopsis and asked if she wanted to add anything. Turns out, she did not, so I bought a roll of that stretchy stuff that looks like crepe paper and went home.

But a Day-Timer waits for no woman. I had scheduled to bake a rhubarb cobbler that afternoon, so I penciled in “put up foot” between baking and making dinner. Next I Googled the recipe for the cobbler. Once the rhubarb concoction was in the oven I was free to “chill”, well at least my foot. Finally, I Googled on my phone directions to a friend’s house for a meeting I was going to be late for because of my toe. I took a nap.

This is really a great day. Why? Because I successfully Googled three things on my phone. Three for three, I was a dazzling success. It must be that searing pain heightens brain activity. And here I always believed heightened brain activity, such as attempting Sudoku, was the cause of pain. My mother was right, you learn something new every day.

By the time I woke up from my nap, the toe next to the little toe was also throbbing, so I tapped that one next to the middle one. What would we call that toe left of center on the left foot? I am thinking “Ring-Man of the Southern Borders?” (Based on the song for fingers: Where is Thumbkin, Pointer, Tall-man, Ring-man, Pinkie.)

There really should be some standardized names for toes other than “This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef”. How about Super Hero names. Starting with the big toe: Stub-man…the ability to find unmovable objects. And his side kick No-Name aka Flip-flop man…the ability to go in the opposite direction, especially when Stub-man finds said unmovable object. Cruncher…the ability to condense in size when wedged into a cowboy boot. Toe-Ringo…Suitable for wearing jewelry purchased at a Ren-Faire. And finally Buster Boy…small in size but able to inflict enough pain to make the rest of the entire body keel over and cry like a baby.

Sally Franz is a former stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, and radio host. She is a twice-divorced mother of two and a grandmother of three. Sally has a degree in gerontology and several awards for humor writing. She is the author of “Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey,” and “The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Menopause.”