SPUR OF THE MOMENT

It’s one thing to put my foot into my mouth. It’s something else when I can’t get it into my shoe. When I’ve  got my foot in my mouth, it means I’ve said something inappropriate. When my big toe rebels, it means the bone spur in my foot is making friends again with a nerve—-whom he lost touch with—-three years ago. It’s kind of like, after you think you’ve gotten rid of him, Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING, pops his head in an yells, “Here’s Johnny!” Not as scary, but exceedingly unexpected.

The reflected pain inside my hiking shoe drove me to my computer. Perhaps, this time, I could find a cure less painful than a Cortisone shot. Although, it worked three years ago, it’s not the most pleasant experience.

Here are some suggestions that Dr. Google gave me:

Soak your foot in hot Chamomile Tea. He also recommended drinking Chamomile Tea, but it wasn’t clear if I was supposed to drink the tea water in which I was soaking my foot.

2.  Bathe the foot in hot Epsom Salt water. However, nowhere did it say to drink the Epsom water.

3,  Soak the foot with Borax dissolved in cool chlorinated water. I guess this is for people stuck in third world countries where it’s hard to boil water so chlorination is recommended. I think the instruction should have said, “Definitely, do not drink this!”

4. Do low impact foot exercises.  It wasn’t clear if, at this point, I was to put my foot into my mouth.

5. Swim!  This was not explicit at all!  I did not know if I was to put Borax, Epsom Salt or Chamomile Tea into the pool.

6. Eat Healthy. I knew this wasn’t going to work at all.

7. Massage area with extra virgin olive oil.

 That’s when the “extra virgin” part got me to thinking that maybe a guy wrote all of this advice just to get a date, and I decided that I needed to choose between my favorite activity—hiking in the mountains—or submitting to a Cortisone shot, which might serve me well for another three years.

I took the shot like a big girl. The Podiatrist instructed me to ice the foot, and hold off hiking for a few days.  He cheerfully added, “If you need it, you can come back for a second shot.”

At least he didn’t say, “Now, you can go to Viet Nam!”

Esther  Blumenfeld.