My friend Lani – saint that she is – after knowing me barely two months, came to get me from the surgery with 1-year-old Cole in tow. He was such a good boy, especially given that he was past due for his lunch by the time Lani was able to get my pain meds from teh pharmacy (my doc sort of forgot to call them in beforehand and that was not something we could just “see” if I could get by without!).

Lani braved the rain to get me the meds and take me down to Pacifica, where I was whisked into the haven of Shirley, Eunice & Lydia Woods’ gingerbread home.

It was pure pampering from that point on – both physically and spiritually. Shirley waited on my every need, and it was a complete blessing, after living 5 years with Eunice & Lydia, to be able to get to know Shirley more. I thought she was great beforehand, and I got to test it out for real there. She really IS that great and more. In fact, I think she is one of the most generous people I have ever met. Both with her time and her service – to pray and to serve.

I was a direct recipient of that – and all at a time when she was going through a home sale and preparing for a two-week excursion to Malaysia. There will be many crowns at the thrown with Shirley’s print on them!

Clearly God was in control. Not only was I able to get the 5:40am bus ON TIME to be at the hospital…but my attending nurse happened to live where? In the Haight. Where? On Clayton. Which part of Clayton? Between Haight & Waller. That would be 639 Clayton. That would be our old place. As Ginny Bunnell used to ask: “Coinkidinky?”

Signing all of the pre-op ‘releases’ certainly drives home the seriousness of surgery. No wonder I kept confusing anaesthesia with anethenasia….glad it was the former…though the reluctance I had to come “out” of it after the surgery led me to believe they may have goofed a bit. My first post-op memory was looking into my inquiring doc’s face and then down at my toes and pointing sternly at them and asking defiantly, “why are they still crooked?”

After all of that hoopla, I wanted beautifully straight toes. But the surgical booties can hide a lot – the good, along with the ugly (Frankensteinian stitches and pins that I woudl later see -fortunately, however, this ugly involved no “bad” in between!).

or: what my life has been about for the past ~month. Today marks Week Three + 2 days post-op of me deciding to go under the knife.

This is the culmination of a long road: it started with my grandmother…Gramma Brown….who always wore pumps and had the worst bunions ever. Somehow I took up the mantle – I swear it was when I wore those tight Jack Purcell sneakers when I was like 5 – and have had these charming projections from my feet ever since. When my co-worker Gina had the procedure done, I was curious.

I went to her doctor (having felt comfortable that I could ride off of her prodigious due diligence) and he used his standard M.O: don’t be knife-happy. Take preventitive steps and monitor. I did…got orthotics…new orthotics…and then finally, about 1.5 years later, he proudly pronounced that I was getting to an “advanced” stage. One of those rare situations where “advanced” is not a badge of honor.

Sadly my own experience corroborated this: I was starting to feel pain, despite my religious foot massages every night (ask my former roomies: they’ll tell you I worked my toes for ten minutes regardless of what was going on!), it was time to accept the fact, suck it up and do it. Stay tuned….