Of Cats and Bones

After my last lovey post about cats, today, I have something else to say. Last summer it came to pass that I broke some toes but didn't know it until weeks later.  It was the dumbest thing ever and has been the biggest thorn in my whole left side since then.  Allow me to tell the tale. Also, you're in luck because I have illustrations (photo and drawn).

First, here's how it initially happened.  The Big Fat (cat) was near me and in a state of being wild and crazy. His primal instincts kick in and he develops a simple need to hunt and kill, no biggie. When this happens he has to be shut away or if he can he'll sneak out into the night to sow his wild oats.  But he is utterly unknown to himself. It's like he transforms from a cat to a were-cat. Very few differences. But oftentimes when this happens we'll have a standoff. I have come to be able to read his signs very well and know what he's feeling and what he plans to do.  Often when we face off, he'll accept the challenge and I do all I can to be the dominant one. It's a battle of wits and prowess. Me, with commanding voice and height but zero claws and boring human teeth, vs him, with animal instinct, insane reflexes, and, of course, sharp claws and teeth, though small and short, with wimpy voice. With finger in air, I scold and warn him he does NOT want to attack me or he'll be very sorry.  "NOOO! NO" i say. Finger held aloft. He usually submits but not without a short pounce and a nip at the ankle that isn't very hard. He just has to get his nip in so he can quietly tell himself, "I won. Me. I did." 

Well, one day, such a thing occurred and he looked particularly out of his mind with aggression. He wasn't, but I have to get over my own instinctual fear of cats hunting me but unfortunately have yet to be 100% successful. So, when he did pounce, which wasn't very hard, I completely and insanely overreacted and reflex-kicked to the side to avoid getting a bite (which again, is never hard) and rammed my ever-loving foot SO HARD into the stair that I was unwittingly standing very close to. Too close to.  Illustration:

"SON OF A BIH!!" I may have yelled.  It was a doozy.  I held my foot and cursed the cat a good long while, as one would do.  The toes were red and angry but I did nothing to mend them for nothing was broken that I could see, and after a few tender days, they more or less felt fine. I didn't know that little compact toe bones can still move even if they're broken.  Fast forward a few weeks when my toes feel ok but my ankle starts bugging me quite a lot.  It was all very new and mysterious to me as I had not, up until this point, ever broken a bone (to my knowledge, anyway. more on that) nor had any similar injury.  But I put two and two together and guessed this new ankle pain had something to do with my toes and the EFFING CAT.  (still mad)

So I made an appointment with the podiatrist and they took some x-rays and sure enough, I had broken two toes with that initial stair kick. Also, he pointed out to me, I had apparently broken another, different toe long ago. What?!  And I seemed to recall a bad day long ago when my pinky toe suffered greatly but couldn't remember details.

The ankle, of course, was due to tendinitis from walking on the outside of my foot because I was tendering those poor broken toes, numbers three and four. So I bought an expensive brace and learned how to wrap my toes which I did for a while which was annoying. Any time someone would ask me what happened I would have to tell them the slightly embarrassing but still rage-filled story. It was just so stupid. So stupid. Stupid... [echo]

Well, since then, and what I think is due to cursing my cat (I should know better) he has inflicted a curse of his own on me, for I have shockingly repeatedly injured these same toes on countless occasions. Countless.  Often it's tripping over stools, whose legs jut out a little bit and are in cahoots with the cat.  One day, waaay too soon after the initial injury I slammed those toes so hard into the stool leg I just knew I had rebroken something. It was awful and I had to try so hard to hold in my curses because I was afraid of what would happen. I started to get really freaked out that my toes would eventually just shrivel up and fall off after being beaten and battered so many times. The same toes.

Well, the cat wasn't just in cahoots with the stools but with the kitten as well.  One day I was descending those same fateful stairs when I spotted, too late, the kitten reclining leisurely on one of the stairs. I think I may have been carrying something too, like a basket of laundry or something, because I feel like my vision was obstructed.  Not wanting to step on her, I stepped on the air over her, which is impossible, so what happened was I sort of stumbled down the rest of the stairs, on my toes bent over forward. Yaaaay.  To illustrate:

see my folded-over toes?

Of course, I still blamed the big cat for this because I can't be mad at the kitten. But seriously?? Again? AGAIN WITH CATS?! This time, I took a picture because are you effing kidding me. It's important to mention here that this injury occurred on my second toe. At the time, I had assumed I had originally broken my second and third toes and was re-injuring my second toe. Sean and I had some debate over it, as he was one who frequently helped me tape them, and thought it had been numbers three and four.  But, it was a year ago, so the details were hazy for both of us.  But I saw the bruise and thought, there, surely that's done it. These toes are toast.  Pics:

bruise right above my thumb

feet are disgusting and i'm sorry

That was several months ago. And I guess over time, since I kept hurting my toes (over...and over... and over again), I began to subconsciously-- you guessed it-- walk funny again, thus bringing on the tendinitis. This of course affected not only my ankle (again) but also my knee something terrible. And I knew it was only a matter of time before it would get to my hip and take down every last joint I had.  Recently, my whole left leg was completely gimpy and the pains spotted the land, this time with numbness and tingling. Ugh. It hurt to walk, lift my leg to climb stairs (like, my knee could not handle a suspended leg) sit, cross my legs, or wear shoes that were remotely tight.  And, once again, I shook two bitter fists to the heavens above, forever to rue that pivotal day last summer when all of this SHIZ began.

One morning, due to the new developments of the worrisome tingling, numbness, and general pain (even though I knew for that, i prob just needed to put the brace back on), I decided to make another appointment with ye olde podiatrist, just to confirm all of my theories, tell my tale of woe, and see if I could do anything to avoid that old neuropathy. It was early in the morning that I made this decision, because I remember wondering when the office would be open and that i'd try to schedule it as soon as it did.  Immediately after having this thought, I then TRIPPED OVER THE KITCHEN MAT and freaking BUSTED number two AGAINNNNNNNN.   Like, completely folded over. Again. {cry cry cry}

Same toe, different bruise:

different nail polish so you know it's legit. also my whole left hand looks bruised. ignore that.

This time it was bruised at the joint same as above but also at the space below, directly above my thumb. I should have drawn circles on these pictures.  But yeah... {deep breath} are... you... seriously...effing...freaking...fudging...kidding me. Like, what is happening?!?!?!?  Am I dragging my feet now? Dragging my toes?  Are they truly so gimpy that they just simply catch on things now? Are they jello now? Do I start calling them jello toes? with jello bones?  I had no answers except for the cat's curse.

It had become par for the course for me to injure a toe on my left foot on any given day, at any given moment.  It was laughable that I had done it again on the day I had planned to schedule an appointment. Also, this was when I still thought the original broken toes were two and three, not three and four, as it turned out to be.  We discovered that later that day when I was in the foot doctor's office and, after having told my tale of woe, congratulated number two for joining the ranks (ol' pinky toe was a long ago veteran that never even got to have a moment of recognition).  The doc said the neuropathy didn't seem severe and would probably go away after a week or two.  I wasn't jazzed about this guy because he was super distracted and I had just finished explaining my foot and leg had been hurting and going numb for a good couple of weeks so... like.. it takes four weeks to fully heal? But, then, I hurt my toe again that morning so maybe that reset the healing. I don't know.  I opted to not have an x-ray even though I'm super curious to see if  that second toe was broken. It was bruised for days and I find that I must be gentle on it.  I guess I'll just find out when I have another severe toe injury sometime down the road and get it x-ray'ed then.

So that's where I am now.  My knee is better (thankfully) and my ankle is struggling but I'm back to taping the toes and wearing the brace, which helps. I'm thinking I'll probably do this for.. the rest of my life? Just to be safe?   Sitting here, my final thought about all this stupid, stupid business is how that darn cat seems to have won in the end, after all.