Foot News and the Spanish Inquisition

There's not a star in the sky over Brooklyn. Not a single one. And there are mountains of dirty white slush piled up on every corner. And outside my window people have finally stopped honking their horns at each other.

The skidding and cursing continue.

New York is medieval. If The Spanish Inquisition were a place you could live in, it would be New York - a constant test of courage, strength, and pain threshold. It never lets up. To learn of a plague visiting this town would not surprise me. I've begun shopping online for locust nets and gas masks. Bubo-Away Sore Spray for when the black death comes. The pall of doom, catastrophe, chaos, and fear that runs over this broken-down town, gives one the feeling The Joker is in charge, with a mayor, city council, and an entire sanitation department tied up unconscious in a basement.

And if the beginning of this entry seems a bit phobic, apocalyptic, paranoid and defeatist – it’s only because I’ve been hobbling around in a medieval city for ten months with a toe injury. I've been keeping that to myself and away from this blog. However, my agony has prompted me to break the silence.

In late March of 2010 I whacked my right foot on a door, and did damage to the first metatarsal-phalangeal joint. That's the joint at the base of the big toe. (I've since learned that doctors like to call it "the great toe.") The first M-P joint is something I'd never heard of before. I didn't even know you could do something to it. But you can - and it is one of the hardest joints in all the body to repair. That's according to the host of medical professionals with whom I have consulted on the topic.

Through the collision of bones, an edema formed in the joint, and now a soap-bubble-sized cyst sits in the middle of it. There might also be other untold damage the MRI and X-rays cannot see. All I know is my right big toe throbs in pain all day every day. Performing in two plays back-to-back prevented me from getting the surgery. Well, that and the fact that I did not wish to believe that surgery was the only answer. In the past ten months, I’ve tried bed rest, a black boot with straps, specially molded orthotic shoes, massage, anti-inflammatories and painkillers, physical therapy and acupuncture.

I’m having surgery this Wednesday.

I can say I’ve tried to keep this blog humorous over heavy most of the time; observational over confessional. I can say I never wanted it to be too intimate, because I cringe at people whining about their personal problems on the internet, and because I worry about too many people knowing my business. I CAN say all this, but it’d be bull-crap. It doesn't take much of a look-back to see that this blog has been a river of embarrassing confessions - sometimes carefully worded, sometimes playfully coded, sometimes as sloppy as a ninth-grader's poem, often as whiny as a Smiths song.

Does that mean I should just say “eff it,” and continue in this fashion, now that I’ve come this far? Not necessarily. But I've definitely been holding back communicating about my injury, for fear of judgment or of some risk to my career; for fear of being thought a sympathy-seeking crybaby boo-hooing on the internet like the rest of America. And lately I've been wondering if there might not be some greater good in talking about it. Perhaps it could prove instructive to others stuck dealing with long-term mechanical problems in an unforgiving metropolis. And on my usual selfish level, perhaps it will begin to alleviate some of the anxieties I have about my pain, my upcoming surgery, and the silly idea some doctors have planted in my brain that I might never walk normally again.

I’ll do it in parts.

Part One: Nobody Gets It.

Through no fault of their own, my friends do not get that I’m injured. They don’t really understand that it takes a lot out of me just to walk from my apartment to the subway station, or from 45^th Street to 46^th Street, or from our table to the bathroom. They understand that I’ve hurt myself, because I’ve explained it to them, and they understand that it’s stressful, and that I see doctors every week, and that I might have to have surgery. However, they don’t understand that walking causes me pain. This is partly because I have forced myself to make journeys on a regular basis. It is almost impossible not to walk in New York, when job, subsistence, and clean laundry are on the line. However, when it comes time to engage in social intercourse – eating out, seeing a show, going to the movies, getting a drink, or going to a party – I have to consider each move very carefully. How many buses can I take between where I am now and 16^th and 1^st? There are no buses? Well, how many steps are there between the subway station and the place where we need to buy beer for the party? Would it be alright if I show up empty-handed to the party, seeing as how the liquor store is all the way over on 4^th Avenue? Would you guys mind coming over to my place?

Yeah, thought so.

Some of my friends will even guilt me into feeling bad about not coming to their neck of the woods - if I complain that I'm not up to it - or if I try to cancel at the last minute because of the pain. They don't understand the double-standard - especially if they hear that I went somewhere else that day; or that I turned up on a JDate wearing my black cam-walker boot. (which I did).

And so then one has to consider whether to be a party-pooper and a disappointing friend, or to struggle out and maybe have some kind of social interaction that might take the sting out of sitting at home with an obstinately injured foot. If you go ahead and choose the latter, you might very well have a cheering social experience – but will be crying in agony by the time you get home, and there you are lying in bed with a pulsing digit. (Um… yeah, sorry folks. Sticking with that one.)

I know this doesn't seem like a big ethical dilemma, or a choice at all. Pain should trump everything. But it doesn't - because for the longest part of that ten months, my friends did not understand the extent of my handicap; and to be honest, neither did I.

-- Coming up.... Part Two: When to Share and When to Hide - Dealing with your Employers.