Experiments in gravity, fashion statements, and pain

I wasn't sure if I should provide follow-up information about The Toe, but so many of you were so kindly sympathetic that it seems only fitting to let you know how it fares now, not quite three weeks after the event.

The ER doctor sent me to the podiatrist for follow up during the next week. The podiatrist took one look at my toe, told me what he planned to do as the usual procedure in such "crush injuries," and injected . . . novocaine? . . . lidocaine? . . . some numbing agent into my foot. I managed not to swear but I do believe that I might have spoken in tongues. Loudly. Interestingly, there are reflexes in one's foot that make it want to jump violently away from sharp objects invading deeply into its nerves. If those reflexes had been as active during the Falling Wood Incident as they were during the Numbing Incident, I doubt I would have been seeing the podiatrist at all.

And then he left the room for a little bit to let my toe get numb.

And then he came back with little scissors.

I wanted to watch, but the very idea was hugely horrifying to me, so I lay back on the reclining chair. We conversed while he did whatever he was doing down there. At one point I lifted my head to answer him and saw enough to make me quickly regain my semi-prone position, eyes fixed on the holes in the acoustical ceiling tile.

He removed my toenail.

I know. 

Gruesome, isn't it.

But it was clearly the way to go because it began to look and feel more like a toe, instead of a small club, right away.

So . . . I recover from my latest experiment in the effects of gravity.

I may or may not regrow my tenth toenail, the doctor says. And should it regrow, it may or may not be normal. And, he said, if it is not normal, we can try removing it again to give it another chance. Mm-hm. Not bloody likely, that.

I have my cute 'n' snappy podiatrist-issued velcro-strapped shoe that makes me walk flatfooted (so as not to dislodge the damaged inner framework of that digit). 

Good training for the clunky sandals for which I grow ever more eligible.

Here's a punchline for you: He told me he had permanently removed his own toenails on his big toes and on his pinky toes so that, with the aid of lots of Vaseline, he can fit his foot into a soccer shoe that's a size smaller than he would otherwise wear. He says it makes feeling and controlling the ball easier. 

Doesn't that seem a hair's breadth away from old-time Chinese "three-inch golden lotuses"?