Toe, Meet Door Jamb

Those who know me know that I am not the most graceful or athletic person on two feet. I am basically a recovering klutz. Back when I played sports I was what you call a sideline athlete. At 6-7, 250lbs I look really good as I walk onto the basket court hopefully scaring the other team with my size. However once the game begins, forget it. I suck and I know it. One of the contributing factors to my suckiness is my flat-footedness. As a baby my feet also pointed outward and I had to wear a special brace that point my feet inward...it sucked and I had horrible cramps in the arch (or where the arch is supposed to be) of my feet. Point is, it's a good thing that I was also born smart because it was not until I stopped growing at 21 that I actually got a bit more coordinated with what was then a long lanky body. Now I just grow outward from the middle. Ass and gut, meet chocolate.

Regretfully, some things don't change, which means that my feet still point out a bit. When walking barefoot danger abounds as my toes stick out and bang things. Today it was the door jamb in my closet and the resulting damage is shown here:




The impact occurred after one step, so while not much momentum had built up, the crack of my toe was loud and the pain was pretty good. Not as horrific as if it had been a straight on stub because in this case the entire toe caught and dislocated out leaving me in speechless despair. For you guys reading, it's that same feeling of when you get hit in the nuts and there is no initial pain, but you know its coming and when it does, OWE, OWE, OWE...can't breath...wanna die! When I dared look, sure enough the pinkie toe was sticking out at a near 90 degree angle. Having broken bones too many times for my liking, I took solace in knowing that it probably was only dislocated and not broken. I pulled it out from the top and then angled it back into place. After a bit of ice, I taped it up and went grocery shopping with Deb. Thankfully, the tape job really helped and walking was not that painful.

The photo is the result of about 4 hours of activity on my feet. It aches more now that I have elevated it and am icing it. No need to go for X-Rays today since you can't do much for toes (in this case) anyway and I am also seeing my physician on Monday for my annual physical. How convenient! I did fear the worst in terms of pain and mobility since I leave in a week for Phoenix to work Super Bowl events for the third straight year with one of my best friends at ESPN. Phew! Look for Super Bowl posts the week before the big game.

By the way this photo was taken with my new camera, a Sony DSC-H3, that has a nice 10x zoom and Macro functionality.

Update: My doctor says that the toe is probably broken, but that there is no reason to X-Ray it since there is nothing to do for it. She said I didn't even need to tape it since it is not out of alignment.