I picked the wrong week to give up drinking.

I've been trying to write more often because, you know, I enjoy it. But then this thing happens where something is physically painful to me and I can't stop talking about how painful it is. I want to describe the pain. The depth, the searing, my inability to remember ever feeling good. I want to come up with metaphors for the pain just so you really understand what is going on. I need you to know. (Please See: Every Time I've Ever Gotten Sick In My Entire Life)

The thing is, I think we all agree this is kind of, I don't know, boring to read? But guess what? OUCH. It's the only thing on my mind right now.

On Sunday we went for a walk to the grocery store, it wasn't a particularly long walk. But after as we prepared Easter dinner for my family I began to limp because this spot on the bottom of my foot began to hurt.

By the end of the night my jaw was radiating with the pain, which I at first attributed to some slightly strained relationships I have with some members of my family. But then they left and my foot began developing it's own gravitational pull. I went to bed at 9:30 and in bed attempted, lamaze breathing and visualized myself as an amputee.

This did not work and instead my dreams consisted of flashing colors which represented the pain. When I wasn't sleeping that night I was waking Logan up to give him status reports on the pain in my foot. "Babe, it's making me drool it hurts so badly. I'm salivating with pain. DON'T YOU EVEN CARE????"

Up until last night I had convinced myself this was not a wart (Ugly word. Ugly thing.) and was instead a splinter of unknown origin since I have to wear shoes every second of every day or risk frostbite. Or it was cancer. A lump of cancer on the ball of my foot. This was a soothing thought when faced with a wart, not that I'm pro cancer or anything. But I'd rather say "I have cancer on the ball of my foot." Than say, "I've got the world's most disgusting wart on the ball of my foot."

But last night as the entire world rotated around the pain in my foot and I read up on things that happen on people's feet, I'd come to accept that I had a wart and I was probably going to have to deal with it for 3 months to 5 years.

I finally saw the doctor and she decided it was not a wart. It was "something" foreign, like tabbouleh, in my foot.

Remember a few years ago when I got a pedicure and my feet were so ticklish (ugh....foot fetishists....) I nearly killed a man with my over-reactive foot. Having my foot shot up with searing lidocaine did not go very well because I have over-reactive feet and also? It hurts like a mother fucker.

After some (still painful on my only partially numbed foot, but please don't stick that needle in my foot again) cutting and poking around the doctor didn't find anything in my foot. So now I have not just a painful section on the ball of my foot, I also have a hole in my foot and potentially some sort of alien surveillance equipment and maybe even a stealthy blob of cancer.

I don't know.

All I know is it still hurts, it's spring break and every word that comes out of my mouth is directly tied to the pain in my foot. In fact, soon the hole in the bottom of my foot will take over the speech portion of my brain.

If you see me hobbling around town and in greeting I scream, "GOD DAMN MOTHERFUCKER". It wasn't me. It was the hole in my foot.

Comments

[jill]

I don't have any advice on what may be going on with your foot, but I can tell you two words that have the same effect on me...boil and drain! Drain should only be used when discussing the object in the sink or tub not about ones body....ewwww.

I hope your foot hole feels better soon.

[Max]

Ok, IANAD, but I had a tragic pain like this in the ball of my foot once. It turned out to be Morton's neuroma. "Morton's neuroma is an enlarged nerve that usually occurs in the third interspace, which is between the third and fourth toes. The most common symptom of Morton's neuroma is localized pain in the interspace between the third and fourth toes. It can be sharp or dull, and is worsened by wearing shoes and by walking."

I thought I would die some days from the pain. May be worth checking out some sites about it and talking to the doctor.

Heal fast! (but it was funny reading about it)

[Aimee Greeblemonkey]

With my diabetes, everything to do with foot pain is a major emergency at the doctors. And I hate feet! I hate discussing my feet! But we did it at length, every 3 months.

Sorry, nothing to do with your tabbouleh cancer. Hope it heals soon.

[Suebob Davis]

I always think about stuff like this when I watch action movies, oddly enough. I think "The guy can get blown up, smacked in the head with a board, dive off a bridge and flip his car 5 times and he's ok, but if I have a bad hangnail, I am tiptoeing around saying "Ouch ouch ouch"?? I could use a little more James Bond in my soul, that's all I'm saying.

[MenchuvianCandidate]

Sorry for your pain, and for your frustration; undiagnosed foot cancers are pure goat balls of frustration. The only thing better, maybe, is a nice walloping of humiliation, like the time when I went in about my horrible, un-diagnosable, foot pain, and, uh, it turned out that my favorite, comfy, shoes-the ones I wore every single day-umm, well, there was a nail sticking straight up through the sole.

What can I say? I had a lot on my mind...

[Kat]

I had excruciating pain in the ball of my foot a few years back. I had to elevate my leg after walking. It kind of looked like a flat slightly raised disc shape if I remember correctly. It did not look like a typical raised wart, but I believe it was a plantars wart(never visited doctor-bad idea) I soaked it in warm water for a very long time and sort of picked at it....I don't recommend this (and it is gross) but I ended up pulling it out and it had a root attached to it....no joke. Ask doctor if it is a plantars wart, they have medication. Good luck!

[*sweetpotatopie*]

Ok, first of all, KAT, I could have gone ALL DAY without reading that.

Melissa, you need to start drinking again, right now. What were you thinking??

Also, maybe x-rays are in order? I once experienced something similar as a child; turns out I'd stepped on a 1 inch piece of bone months prior and it had gone straight up into my foot. Then it decided to come back out. Unfortunately, I was too young to drink.

[Bonzai]

OK, I don't want to be one of THOSE people, but it does sound exactly like what happened to me. I developed what are called Morton's Neuromas on either side of my middle toe on my left foot. Basically, these are nerve tumors caused by squishing your feet into fabulous-looking but deadly narrow, high-heeled shoes for too many years (think Carrie Bradshaw). Anyway, the damn toe didn't hurt, but when I walked more than about, oh, two feet, it felt like I had a walnut in my shoe under the ball of my foot. A large, screamingly painful, burning hot walnut.
The cure? If you are lucky, they shoot them up with cortisone, and the little nerves go back to their normal non-tumorous state. If you aren't lucky (and I never am), they have to cut them out - and then you have a numb toe forever and trip on things a lot since your foot loses all its Spidey senses about when the sofa leg is lurking nearby. But no more flaming walnut of death...

SO - ask around, find a good podiatrist and have them use a fluoroscope to look for the suckers - soft tissue so they don't show up on traditional X-rays.

[Bonzai]

Oh, and you know what really sucks? Having to donate 40 pairs of absolutely fabulous, kick-ass shoes to Good Will. And then becoming familiar with the phrase "shoes with a wide or squared toe box" which translates into "ugly shoes like someone's old Grandmother with bunions might wear". sigh.

[smackdown]

at least there's always glue-sniffing!

if i had a nickel for every time this happened to me - the pain fixation thing, not necessarily the foot tabboleh thing (although the other night i had a bizarre pain in the ball of my left foot, and when i went to look i found that a DOG HAIR had PIERCED THROUGH THE TOP LAYERS OF SKIN like a splinter and was embedded in my foot, and what the hell?!) - i would have ten thousand million nickels.

[Susan]

Please tell me you are kidding about the giving up drinking. Because that is making me nervous.

[Jenn O]

You're lucky you don't live with Danger Boy-pain doesn't bother him at all so if you say "Ow!" when a car runs over your toe he says, "Wow, you have a really low pain tolerance." Very annoying.

I hope they discover what's ailin' you soon.

[sozzled]

I'm with Susan, whats up with the giving up drinking??? That is just crazy talk.

[Nothing But Bonfires]

Ha! "Something foreign, like tabbouleh!" Are you sure it wasn't falafel instead? I imagine Falafel Of The Foot would hurt like a motherfucker.

[filmfangirl]

Definitely invite Dr. Al Cohol over for a consult and a box of wine tout de suite. I had horrible Plantar's warts covering the bottom of my foot for like, a DECADE. It was the bain of my existence. Then one day they TOTALLY DISAPPEARED. Like effing magic. Magical effing warts. Don't know what that was about exactly, but maybe the same will happen with your Unidentified Middle Eastern Foot Disease! One can only hope and dream.
Cheers,
filmfangirl

[carosgram]

I also felt like there was something in my foot and it hurt when I walked. It was a neuroma and my podiatrist was wonderful and treated it successfully. Get a second opinion from a podiatrist. Having pain when you walk is intolerable.

[TeriLynn]

tabbouleh. Ha!

[Wordygirl]

Oh foot pain is my Achille's heel; pun totally intended. I can take a lot of hurties, but not in my feet! That being said, I have nothing to offer other than sympathy...that and I quit drinking. It lasted a week; I really just wanted to make sure I could actually STOP drinking. It worked.

[Belinda]

I have given birth. I have shattered bones--several. I have had multiple surgeries. I have had bone harvested from my hip to graft into my foot. I have survived endometriosis so painful that I was put on a daily regimen of METHADONE, for crying out loud. My point is, I know pain. And I am here to tell you that the single most painful experience OF MY LIFE was having lidocaine injections into the ball of my foot, in order to facilitate the removal of shards of broken glass. PERIOD. End of story. Nothing hurts worse. You now have my undying respect and sympathy. You are my sister.