Dragging Feet Over Impending Foot Surgery

I wasn’t born with a silver foot in my mouth or anywhere else. I was born with a foot that was destined to give me trouble, my Achilles’ foot. It says so in my astrological chart, so it must be true.

In a few days, I’m going to have an operation on my foot, and I’ve got a bad attitude. They call it elective surgery, but I didn’t elect to have the problem the surgery will correct. Now I’ve got two problems: a messed-up foot and a chip on my shoulder.

One of the many things I dread about this whole deal is the prospect of hobbling around with a big bandaged foot for several months and having people ask me: What’s the problem? Then I’ll have to decide which version of the story they’ll get.

I could tell them that it was caused by jogging for 10 years, which no doubt contributed to the problem but wasn’t the cause. I could tell them that I had discount bunion surgery at a learn-as-you-go podiatry clinic 18 years ago, which also didn’t help.

But the real cause was that I didn’t want to go home to Chicago in 1969. I can’t remember why I didn’t want to go home and see my mother, but that was the reason. The day before I was supposed to go home I ran up some stairs in thongs, missed a step and broke something. I was secretly pleased, thinking I’d tripped my way out of the trip.

I couldn’t afford to see a doctor then because I was young and determined to make it on my own and not go crying home when I had a problem. So I went to a free clinic and sat in a room full of people freaking out on LSD. “You can still go home,” the medic told me, to my chagrin. The free clinic probably misdiagnosed the problem, but I found the place so interesting that eventually I volunteered to work there.

I ended up going to Chicago anyway, walking around in my platform-heel boots and my miniskirt because I had to look cool although my foot was killing me. I didn’t tell my mother my problems because I was too proud to admit I couldn’t get along without her.

When my pain didn’t go away, I went to Joe’s House of Podiatry and got the learn-as-you-go surgery. The experience of being in the hospital was so horrible that I decided to become a nurse, realizing that even with one foot tied behind my back I could show more care for a patient than I got.

I worked as a nurse for 14 years, forgot about my foot, forgot about my vulnerability and thought I would spend my old age jogging 20 miles a day. But the bones in my foot didn’t forget that they’d been traumatized. The thing is, bones do have memory. Once broken, all the king’s surgeons and all the king’s men can never quite put them together again.

So now I make jokes about my impending surgery. You’ve heard of microsurgery? This guy’s got a chain saw.

What hospital am I going to? The one where the doctor’s wife went in for a nose job and came out permanently brain damaged. Nobody noticed because she looked like Morgan Fairchild.

But, inside, I’m scared as a baby of this whole thing. Because even if I come out better, my foot will never be perfect again. I’ll never wear those platform boots again even if--God forbid--the ‘70s look comes back.

My mother died 10 years ago, so I don’t have to go to Chicago anymore. But all I want to do now is go home and have somebody take care of me.