ATHLETE'S FOOT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-24-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     My orthopedist's office is my home-awayfrom-home these days. I've been putting some of his kids through college by re-injuring my foot as many times as he has kids. Once I confirmed that he isn't planning to have any more children, he performed a percutaneous skeletal fixation of a fracture in my fifth metatarsal. And each word of that sentence over three syllables cost me a thousand dollars towards my deductible. The medical community has a special committee that makes up words that immediately vaporize if used outside of a clinical context. Too bad, because if I told you that your hair was looking quite percutaneous today, we could both go home happy, and you'd have your truth, and I'd have mine.

     He told me that the injury is not uncommon among athletes. I said, "Then YOU explain how it got into MY foot." There are some things that medical school cannot prepare you for. The hardest part is answering people who ask how it happened. I guess it was from playing tennis, but it's hard to believe I was playing vigorously enough to break my foot. Sometimes things just happen to me for their own reasons. I'm the type of person that could write a "poison pen" letter, and somehow kill myself with the pen by accident. So I made up a more plausible scenario of how I broke my foot: "I was about to go onstage and someone said 'Break a leg.' Obviously I didn't think they were talking about my own, so I broke my foot kicking the other members of my band in the leg."

     So I got to the hospital for my surgery, and was met at the front desk by a very pleasant lady whom I can only assume was the maître d'. I tipped her first thing, insuring myself a good seat. Every doctor or nurse I came into contact with tried to stump me with the same question: what is my name and birthday? They didn't ask me my address, so I knew I wasn't going to get a birthday card. I answered a different way each time, and that's how they knew it was really me. Then a nurse asked me which foot we were operating on, and I told her the right foot, but I would have said that no matter which foot was broken. Their motto is, if it ain't broken, don't fix it, unless it's covered by insurance.

     There's a lot I can still do even on only one foot: I can still grouse, I can still carp, I can still bemoan, I can still objurgate, I can still grumble, I can still grizzle. That's six things right there. Running a Marathon? Not anytime soon, which coincidentally is also my best time.

     I was informed that the procedure was successful. I was a little groggy as the anesthesia wore off in the recovery room, but the nurses said I could go home as soon as I started making sense. I pictured myself as a modern-day "Jeff" Jeffries, the broken-footed hero in "Rear Window." I'm about to expose Thorwald for killing his wife, but he figures out where I live and now it's just me and him, so I point my camera to blind him with my flash, just like in the movie. "Hold on, my flash is set on a ten-second delay. I have to check the instruction book, but actually the instructions are in a .pdf file on the manufacturer's website. Give me a moment Thorwald, you impatient scoundrel. Found it- nope, it's in Arabic. I'm going to have to poll the 'Online Community.' Stop right there, Thorwald, or these pictures go right on Facebook, and you are not going to love the unflattering lighting."

     Then I imagined myself as a modern-day "Fugitive," hunted by the innocent but relentless Dr. Richard Kimble, but instead of one arm I have only one foot. "Have you seen a one-footed man here?" Kimble asks a guy stacking carts at the supermarket. He says, "Why, yes, he was shopping here at around noon." "NOON! That means he has a two-hour head start!" "Well actually, he's right over there, still hopping towards the parking lot exit." 

     Or I could be a modern-day "Ironside," a chief of detectives fighting crime with my broken foot from a wheelchair. "Chief, this investigation has stalled, what should we do??" "We go where the clues take us, that's what we do." "Sir, all the evidence seems to point to the house at the top of that hill, and we'll be right behind you." "Actually, I think I saw some clues heading DOWN that hill over there, so I'll just take the low road. Later!" "But Chief! CHIEF!" 

     The nurses got tired of waiting for me to make sense and released me on my own recognizance, since they couldn't find anyone else who would let me onto their recognizance.