The Foot In My Lap Could Tell A Story

With the foot in my lap staring back at me, I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. What a story my foot could tell.

The Foot Story Of January 17, 2005

It almost seems like yesterday. Although I’m not one hundred percent sure that it was 2005, I do know that it was January 17th.

At the time, I was the General Manager of a large corporate hotel in Richmond, Virginia. One of the main hotels in our chain was located in New Jersey. Since a meeting was planned on January 17th, I booked my stay at the New Jersey hotel and reserved a car to drive for the trip up there since I did not want to fly.

This trip coincided with my birthday, so by the time the day arrived, I was feeling quite happy because I love my birthday. It was a long drive, but the car was great and the hotel was pleasant.

On the morning of my birthday, the sun was shining brightly outside. I didn’t have to be anywhere super early, so I ate breakfast and got ready in a relaxed manner. Then I stretched back on the bed intent on watching a little television before I had to leave for the day.

“Where was the remote?” I asked myself while looking around on all the surfaces of the furniture.

Then I saw the television remote on top of the television set at the end of the bed. No, the hotel did not have flat screen televisions at the time, so the it was still the big, deep screened television. I figured that I could just crawl to the end of the bed, lean over, grab the remote and crawl back to the head of the bed to watch a good program. That’s exactly what I proceeded to do.

I crawled to the the end of the bed.

Once I was at the end of the bed and still on my knees in the crawling position, I realized that even though I was reaching as far as possible, my arm wasn’t long enough to grab the television remote control.

Without too much thought, I flung one leg around towards the floor at the end of the bed while leaning and reaching for the remote. I assumed that my one foot would stand on the floor, my hand would grab the remote and I would crawl back up to the head of the bed.

That’s not what happened.

On my birthday, I nearly died.

It would have been “death by television.”

So this is what happened.

Without too much thought, I flung one leg around towards the floor at the end of the bed while leaning and reaching for the remote. However, the big toe on my right foot was slightly wrapped by the top sheet on the bed. As I brought my leg around to be in front of me, the sheet encircled my big toe. That would have been fine except that I was in motion and leaning towards the television so that I could reach the remote.

At that moment I realized my right foot had stopped moving forward, so I used more strength to pull it forward and the sheet that was wrapped around my toe came loose. It didn’t register in my mind fast enough that the toe was loose. The force that I was applying with the leg was too much and happened too fast for my senses. The toe was unwrapped and moving at record speed toward the front and floor like a sling shot.

Before I could change any of my movements, the top part of my foot, most specifically the joint that connects my big toe to the foot slammed into the floor. All the exerted movements culminated in the top of my foot hitting the floor quite hard. It was hard enough to break my big toe. That was the least of my worries at the moment because my body had still been moving forward and my face was now heading directly for the television screen.

I was going to die on my birthday my having my head get smashed into the television as it exploded.

At the last second when my foot slammed into the floor, I also grabbed the television to stop my forward lunge.

Is it looking like a scene from “I Love Lucy” in your head? If you said, “Yes,” then you are seeing this whole situation quite clearly.

So my head didn’t go through the television, but now I had to call my boss to drive me to the hospital. I didn’t want to tell anyone how stupidly I had broken my big toe. Of course, I ended up telling my boss who immediately started laughing. He was compassionate, but he did laugh quite a bit.

We drove to the hospital and each person through the admitting process kept wanting to know “how” I had broken my toe. I was so embarrassed at my own stupid mistake that I didn’t want to tell them…so I didn’t tell the story.

The Check-In Person: How did you break your toe?
Me: It doesn’t matter. It is broken.

The nurse who pushed the wheel chair: How did you break your toe?
Me: It doesn’t matter. I am too embarrassed to tell you. However, I’m sure my toe is broken.

The nurse who took my vitals: How did you break your toe?
Me: It doesn’t matter. I am too embarrassed to tell you. However, I’m sure my toe is broken.

The nurse in the Emergency Room: How did you break your toe?
Me: It doesn’t matter. I am too embarrassed to tell you. However, I’m sure my toe is broken.
The nurse in the Emergency Room: You really need to tell the doctor how you broke your toe so that he will know how to help you best.
Me: It’s broken! Why does he have to to know “how” I broke it?!”

Finally, The doctor in the Emergency Room: it says here that you won’t tell anyone how your toe got broken. How did you break your toe?
Me: It doesn’t matter. I am too embarrassed to tell you. However, I’m sure my toe is broken.
The doctor in the Emergency Room: You really need to tell me how you broke your toe.
Me: It’s broken! I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh.
The doctor in the Emergency Room: I promise I won’t laugh at you.

Then I tell the doctor the whole long story. When I get to the very end, he starts laughing.

I should have known better than to believe that the doctor wouldn’t laugh at me!

The doctor prescribed pain killers, an anti-inflammatory medication and gave me a beautiful boot to wear on the foot with the broken toe. He also told me that the feet were among the slowest healing parts of the body.

Oh great.

For the next eight months I wore an ugly boot. I actually wore one boot out and had to buy another one. My toe ached all the time and turned the loveliest shade of black, yellow and purple whenever it felt like doing it. Eventually, I needed to get it looked at again by another doctor, but that’s another whole crazy story that I’ll tell you later.

Yeah, my big toe has had a whole lot of attention.