Under Pressure

This morning I woke up oddly curious about what will actually happen with this hammertoe. I mean, I know what will HAPPEN happen: it should be fixed and no longer curl up like a little claw. Which, side note: I actually have a CLAW toe, not a hammer toe. There is a difference! And there’s even a third variety, the mallet toe.

Basically, it comes down to which of the joints in the toe is, well, jacked up. Hammer toe: the middle joint. Mallet toe: the one closest to the tip. And claw toe: both of them, curled under like the little talon it is. That’s me. So anyway, I have (had?) a weird curled toe, and Dr. Stein has assumedly fixed it, because there are currently two nails with little loops on the ends coming out of the top of my toe, known in polite medical company as “pins.”

Those things have to come out at some point, and early this morning I was suddenly struck by the question of exactly when that would happen. Followed immediately by the more obvious question: how. So I did what any paranoid techie does. I YouTubed it.

I can honestly say I’m not sure if watching the video made me feel better or worse. The doctor basically grabs the little loops and just… pulls. And out slides a 3- or 4-inch-long rod. The video notes that it feels “like an odd pressure” but assures the viewer that it doesn’t actually hurt. It also says pin removal happens around 4 or 6 weeks post-op, which means it won’t be at this coming Monday’s appointment. So, yay..??

Anyway, as I close out this return-to-work week, I’m able to reflect on what I’m thankful for: the ability to work from home, to sit on my couch with my legs propped up and my spandex shorts on, hair in a messy bun, work camera off. 10 days down, only 80 or so more to go.

As the lyrics from “Under Pressure” go, “love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.” I’m learning, slowly, to do exactly that. One weird curled toe at a time.