Before the surgery, my doc told me I wouldn’t have to have those screws I’d been readin g about. “I don’t leave anything in your foot.” Sounded good to me. So it was so strange on that first visit last week when I saw these little thingys protruding from my feet (in between my big & 2nd toe) – what on EARTH could those be?

“Those are your pins.” Ah yes – the Pins. No screws – but pins.

Well, I suppose that makes sense, given that they are breaking your feet- your bones gotta know how to grow back! Such detail was not really where I wanted to “go” before the surgery, but now that it’s done, bring it on. They broke the bones and reset them. Yippee. No wonder my feet are all black & blue. Suffice to say that when I cognitively was *aware* of the pins, that I became very very clear as to why I had that sharp kind pf pain in a triangular area at the top of my foot. Before learning this, I chalked it up to an amorphous sort of “healing” in “that area” – well now it was crystal clear. And made this day all the more meaningful: the pins were going to be removed! No more pin pain!

Tobee, unlike Kelly and like most people we know, opted not to sit in the room and look. I took one last picture of my feet with pins in them and then thrust my head back while the doc went to work. And it WAS work: it was not a gentle removal of an acupuncture-thin needle. It was a YANK of a strong, thick, sturdy needle that had made its home inside my foot for a while. It was not fun. It surely could not have been pretty.

Once that painful ordeal was done, the prickly pain of pulling out the stitches was NOTHING – heck, it was only skin deep. And the doc then confided that he hates doing the pin thing. “I dislike it more than you, trust me.”

Glad he told me when it was done.

That must have been what my doctor was thinking – otherwise why WOULD he have done that during my 2nd visit? See doc, the thing is, these post-surgical booties have velcro at the bottom AND THE TOP of the foot …I would have THOUGHT you’d known that from all the patients you see…but you surely must have, well, FORGOTTEN…or, forgot that I just had surgery? Peeling a bootie off the top of a post-bunionectomy foot is not the most kind gesture.

After I got over that shock, it was, however, nice to see the x-rays of me pre-op and on my first post-op visit. That is also when we got to see the “K-Wire” pin inside my foot. My friend Kelly was pretty excited to take it all in. She’s a doctor wanna-be. Who else would want to sit IN the room with you and see your Frankensteinian feetsies? Every time they take the bandages off, I am reminded of how little I am bathing and feel like a mummy. My feet are essentially mummys’ feet. I have one over on Steve Martin: I gotta “condo mada stona” AND the feet to match.

This is what my friend Julie named my new place….which has, as my friend Kelly later recited to me (after heaving up a backpack full of groceries) FIFTY-ONE steps (I counted 54 later because I included some shifts & turns she gracefully omitted).

Yes, my friend Lisa came by the Woods, partook in scrumptious Shirley-made fare and took me back to the Fortress, which I ascended gently and gingerly on my derriere. Whoever does crutches UP stairs, let me know ‘cuz I don’t get that. Though I did ditch the crutches a few days prior anyway – they HURT!

Lisa took great care to make sure things were positioned where I needed them to be: chair in the kitchen, chair in front of the bathroom sink, blankets on the front couch (I have a futon flat on the ground in the bedroom – the bedroom set didn’t survive the move), and then it was just me. Here.

I have this thing about sleeping IN your bed….so I relented and moved my stuff back there. And I survived!