I’ve been working towards my first, very modest adventure in self-publishing for a few months and am now at the last hurdle paperwork wise. But over the last few weeks I’ve also been dealing with some painful foot injuries. Imagine my surprise then that I now find myself writing this while recovering from surgery to remove two toes and around a quarter of my left foot!
Needless to say this has been very much “out of the blue” and extremely traumatic, to put it mildly.
The wound on the left foot was infected and had a lot of “necrotic” tissue (a fancy way of saying dead). This was poisoning my body as a whole and could have led to amputation of the foot or even leg (it still could in fact, but things are looking hopeful).
Any diabetic should know of these dangers. I did and tried to get help, but the speed at which things moved was scary.
When I first saw my “new” foot my mind seemed to jump outside my skull. I wouldn’t claim to have the prettiest feet on Earth but what faced me now looked like something from a horror movie. It was as though my left foot had been cut off to be replaced by a disgusting alien hybrid experiment.
The rest of the day was terrible, I kept coming back to that vision long after the foot was re-wrapped and suffered from horrible nightmares overnight. Somewhat miraculously, a day later I could look at it without my fearful primate brain kicking in too badly and even managed to snap a couple of photos with my phone (I’ll spare everyone’s sensibilities and won’t post them here – they’re just as a form of record for me).
The message here is that you need to follow your passions as fully as possible as you really don’t know what’s around the corner. I thought I’d learned this fully a while ago but it seems we can always use a little (or big) reminder. That path isn’t always easy or direct, but the alternative could be something as drastic and life-changing as amputation.
A special thanks to all of the wonderful, caring and highly professional staff at Health Sciences North in Sudbury, Ontario.
