Hopping along
Whilst coming back home from work, I started to become aware of the underside of the big toe on my left foot. Wasn’t exactly an itch, but wasn’t a sting either. By late evening there was a distinctive red patch under my toe and it was making walking a little uncomfortable. I’d thought maybe a spider bite, but dismissed this as a possibility when I realised the spider would’ve had to spend nine hours in my shoe prior to biting me. Knowing my shoes, I doubt a spider could’ve lasted more than nine minutes in there without biting me in a desperate attempt to escape, plus I didn’t feel a bite of any kind.
Yesterday morning I made an attempt at lancing it, and quickly struck oil. Thinking that was the end of that, off I went to work, and proceeded to walk on it all day. Being a hot day, my feet swelled a little anyway, but by the time I got home and out of my work shoes, I could see something was amiss. My left foot was close to half the size again of my right, and it had changed colour to a deep red. It threw out so much heat that when I put ice against it in an effort to minimise the swelling, the ice began melting at double the rate it was disappearing in plain old summer-in-an-oven-that-passes-for-a-house room temperature.
It was about this time I became a bit concerned, and resolved to trying to get in and see a doctor. By this morning, several hours of keeping my weight off the foot had stopped the swelling, though it was still fitting the clichéd football analogy quite well. A second drilling spouted a gusher, and got me on the phone quick smart to call the doctor’s surgery. Answering machines are very understanding when you’re slightly manic, slightly panicked, and really wanting to have someone listen to your complaints. I’ll bet they’ve kept my message as an office favourite.
Anyway, they called me back as I was hobbling in to work, and the only appointment they had free was 9am. I decided to take it, and hobbled the fastest I ever did hobble to try and get there in time. Quite embarrassingly, that second lancing had released most of the pressure, and the impressive swelling had all but disappeared. Now all I had to present to the doctor was a toe with a few holes in it, and some loose skin on the underside of my toe where it had stretched, and then very suddenly shrivelled like a sad party balloon.
I’m on anti-biotics for it, but I suspect these may be a placebo for panicked patients who come in thinking they’re on death’s door because of a paper cut. Not that I’d ever be one of those types of patients…