Best Foot Forward?

I was angry, and I was flustered. Just two days ago I had not just cleaned the kitchen, but deep cleaned the kitchen. Everyone knows when the kitchen has been deep cleaned every effort possible should be made to ensure it stays that way for as long as possible. Still-vivid memories of the sweat trickling down my back as I scrubbed and mopped came to the fore of my mind when I saw it was already getting trashed. 

I muttered my discontent to the girls who were eating breakfast and I stormed around in a fit, determined to conquer (yet again!) the entropy before my eyes. In the midst of all this, I spotted dirty socks laying in the middle of the dining room. Even though we still don't have any furniture in that room, it's the girls' favorite place to romp and play. To be fair, it's also where we've put the karaoke machine and well, we have girls who love to hear their voice over a microphone. Surely Liesel or Ireland had thoughtlessly peeled off her socks before launching into her own version of "Roar" and the fact she hadn't considered that I'd be the one left to clean up just had me seeing red. I snatched up those socks with a vengeance and whipped around to return to the messy kitchen. As I did so, I jammed my left foot right into the edge of the baseboard at the bottom of the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen.

The pain was blinding and I cried out. Immediately the girls demanded over and over to know what happened. I asked them to just let me deal with the pain for a second until I could answer them. I'm a clumsy person, I do stuff like this all the time. But this was different and I knew it instantly. After consulting my sister-in-law and my friend who are nurses, they told me to buddy tape it just in case it was broken. 

I really didn't want to see a doctor because quite frankly, it's such a pain (ha! pun!). But even with the buddy taping, that fourth toe seemed to keep rotating outward, so I finally went in. Turns out it wasn't just a break, but a clean break.

If you look at the 4th toe from the right, then 3rd bone down, you'll see where the bone is completely broken in a sharp diagonal. Luckily I wouldn't need surgery, but I would need time to let it heal. CrossFit was a big no-no. I tried to argue that almost everything we do is powered through the heal. The doctor looked me right in the eye and said, "You can either stay off of this as much as possible and let it heal in 6 weeks, or you can try and push it and it will take 3 months. The decision is yours." I took my stupid velcroed, stiff-soled shoe and left Immediate Care feeling down and dejected.

I refused any prescription medication for the pain, which I really ended up regretting. That night I lay in bed in agony- it felt like someone was stabbing a needle right through my foot. Once I made it through that night, it started to get better but oddly the bruising got worse.

But eventually it got better.

And then worse again in some parts.

Up until then, I never realized how often my children approach me at a run and accidentally step on my feet. I became an expert at balancing on one foot so I could protect the injured one. I desperately missed CrossFit where I'd just started to make some serious progress. I quickly tired of the questions and looking like an idiot in that ugly velcroed, stiff-soled shoe. I was irritated with how much I had to adjust my regular schedule. With Liesel in Girls on the Run, I ached to take in a mile or so with her. Cruelly, the weather was perfect for it. Per doctor's orders, I stayed off of it as much as possible while that toe slowly healed.

I don't think my toe will ever look quite the same but I'm so grateful to be back in running shoes, back in heels, and back in flip flops!