Stupid Foot Injury

Turns out practice what you preach is more than just a proverb. Or metaphor. Or what ever. It turns out it is (insert your favorite expletive) good advice.

So for over a year now I’ve been harping on my patients not to run around bare or sock-footed. They are all sick to death of my line “love your feet and they’ll love you back,” and my proposed bumper sticker: Be buried with all your toes: wear your slippers tonight!

I might be fuzzy on the exact number, but I recall that we have about 600 non-traumatic amputations each year in my state alone. Now, if you are the amputee, I can guarantee that all amputations are traumatic. But non-traumatic amputation is simply one that is medically necessary rather than the result of a car accident, lawn mower incident, dropped chainsaw or improvised explosive device. Thankfully, we have very few of the latter here in the Land of Enchantment.

That said, almost all of the 600 are diabetics. Nationwide, we D-folk lead the charge and are responsible for the vast majority of non-traumatic amputations.

So back to practicing what I preach. I had a looooooooooooong day. When I got home I sat down at my computer to check my emails and kicked my shoes off, too lazy to go find slippers first.

I stayed on the computer a little too long and subsequently had to make a dash for the bathroom where upon my foot missed the door opening and smacked full speed into the door jam.

On the bright side, the level 9 pain confirmed the recent monofilament test showing I have absolutely no reduced feeling in my feet whatsoever. What followed was a predictably un-dignified string of curses in five languages interspersed with pounding my fist on a counter top while hopping around on the remaining intact foot. So now I’m suffering from both a throbbing foot and a throbbing hand.

I don’t know why we men-folk do that: hit a counter top or a wall when we’ve hurt another part of the body. Maybe it’s to distract our animal brains from the pain. Yeah, good plan. You are in pain, so add more pain. There is probably only so much pain you can stand before your pain receptors are overloaded and you can’t feel a thing anymore.

So I feel stupid ‘cause I ran into a wall. And I feel stupid ‘cause I know better. And I feel stupid ‘cause I’m a (insert your favorite expletive) hypocrite. In this case a limping hypocrite with a dark purple toe to show for it.

Practice what you preach. Good words to live by.