Scary Feet

I have previously written of the various problems with my feet; but just in case they are not at the forefront of your mind or you have not taken "The Bumpy Ride" before, I will remind you:

1. I have very long feet. Size 12 (OK, probably 12 1/2 in a perfect shoe world.)

2. I have extremely narrow feet - Quadruple A.

3. I have a hammer toe.

4. I have flat feet.

5. I have a slight fungus on one of my big toes.

6. I recently suffered a joint dislocation to the aforementioned hammer toe.

7. I frequently suffer from in-grown toe nails.

On other occasions I've written about embarrassing pedicures, premature pedicure ruination, difficulty finding shoes, accidentally going out in public wearing 2 different shoes, and my hammer toe injury and NO, this is not becoming an ALL FOOT blog; but all of this information is pertinent to my latest foot fiasco; which of course I have to share with you.

The other night some friends and I went over to our friend Lisa B's house to scrapbook. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other in quite some time, so a good portion of the evening was spent catching up. Lesa G and I were planning our much needed return to the gym and of course I had to justify my exercise sabbatical by recounting the story of my injured toe, for those who weren't up to date on may ailment. The discussion of my toe and my visits to the Podiatrist inspired others to tell of their Podiatric pasts. I learned that many of them (or their family members) had been plagued by in-grown toe nails and once they told me how they were permanently removed, I felt an extraordinary sense of relief; because it seems that after almost every pedicure I develop an in-grown toe nail that hurts like a mother trucker; and alas, THERE IS A CURE IN SITE.

The topic of in-grown toe nails prompted me to tell the ladies the following story; which they asked me to repeat, over and over and over again; thus leading me to conclude that THIS was a story that I needed to blog.

We had been planning to go to Disneyland for Lyndzi's birthday, and for about a week or two prior to our trip, we had been experiencing particularly cold weather for this part of the country. The temperature concerned me because I thought that I would have to wear closed toe shoes in the park (as opposed to flip flops) and in addition to closed toe shoes not being conducive to my injured toe; it was going to be very difficult for me to wear them because of the excruciating pain that I was experiencing in one of my big toes, due to a in-grown toe nail. I had told Luis about my toe and he agreed to try and take care of it for me, but we never seemed to find the time for that; so Queen of HIGH PAIN TOLERANCE that I am, sucked it up and went on. I made it through our day at Disney, but by the next day my affliction was even worse. I remebered that In May when I had gone to California for Rachel' Ks birthday, I had a pedicure with Kim; (who Rachel sees regularly;) and since we were going to be spending the night at Rachel's, I asked her to call Kim to see if she could get me an appointment; as I thought that a trusted and experienced nail technician could at least alleviate some of discomfort. And although I knew that her treatment would not be the same as going to a Podiatrist, I was willing to endure anything to get some relief. Thankfully Kim was able to see me, and so Rachel, Hershey and I went for my appointment. First I explained that she was going to have to be very careful with my injured toe, because it was still very painful; then I went on to tell her about the in-grown toe nail and lastly I apologized profusely for the overall condition of my feet, because they kind of looked like I had just crawled out of a cave.

Kim got to work on the in-grown and although it was as painful as I expected; I let out a HUGE sigh of relief when she was done. She then looked at the heels of my feet and asked every pedicurists favorite question (please read this in your best Vietnamese accent...) "You want callous remova?" I said "No thank you" and (get your accent on,) Kim replied "Your husband must scream when he get in bed with you at night, because your feet so scary!" Oh my God, did Rachel and I laugh. And, no, I wasn't even insulted because at that point I was so indebted for her help that she could have told me that Sasquatch had nothing on me, and I wouldn't have cared. Nonetheless, I offered my defense by saying that I am VERY hard on my feet. That I have very big feet which makes it difficult for me to find comfortable / fashionable shoes and so I typically wear flip flops which are not the best hygienically speaking and when I wasn't in flip flops I was bare footed and so even when I had gotten the callous remover in the past; within 2 days my feet were back to looking "scary" anyway; so I wanted to save the $5 for a flower instead. And, so we moved on. Kim asked if I wanted to have a manicure too, and though I had no nails to speak of, I told her that I was so grateful for her help and her time that other than a back wax, she could do whatever else she wanted. And so, with Hershey on my lap, Kim completed my pedicure, gave me a lovely manicure, and asked if I wanted my eyebrows waxed. I agreed and I laid down on the table, only to have Kim ask (accent please) "You never wax eyebrows before?" Oh my, that's 2. I assured her that I did get my eyebrows waxed, I just hadn't done so very recently. I took a big ole gulp of my pride and tried to relax; but Hershey was crying while Rachel was trying to hold her for me, and so I conceded to allow Hershey to lay on my stomach while Kim ripped the excess hair from my brows.

I left Kim's feeling like a new woman. My toe was already doing a million times better, my nails looked splendid and my eyebrows were refreshed. I'd say that was all worth the price of my plight.

Till next time...

Queen of EVERYTHING