Momnesia

Foot patrol

Anyone who has hung out with me for more than a few months knows that I periodically spend time on crutches. It's just what I do. It's like, "Why do bears hibernate?" They just do. "Why does Stacey fall down?" I just do.

So a couple of days ago, I fell down again. I didn't break any bones this time, yay! But there was blood, boo.

Our living room, dining room and kitchen are all open to one another. But while the living/dining area is hardwood, the kitchen is rockin' some linoleum because it is just so cool. Linoleum is like retro hipster kitchen flooring - or so I tell myself. Anyway, where the two types of flooring meet, the landlord installed an idiotic strip of metal to join them.

I don't even know why you'd put a hump of metal in the middle of high-traffic area, but that's what he did. It's ugly, unwieldy and apparently dangerous even for mere walking. Because the other morning, at 6 a.m., I went from living room to kitchen, and hit my foot on something, nearly falling on my face. I took a step to steady myself, and... squish.

"That's an awful lot of blood on the floor," I thought. "Oh, wait, that's my blood!"

The metal edge of the flooring-whatever-majig had bent up through normal wear and tear. The edge of it caught the pad on the ball of my foot and sliced it. Sliced it like ham, people!

And, of course, as soon as I lifted my foot to look it, it started hurting. A lot.

"Hey, Em? Could you grab me a paper towel?" I called, while I watched the blood pool in the wound, and run down my foot in rivulets. She trotted out of the bedroom, saw my foot, and began sprinting in circles.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" she cried. "You're bleeding!"

"Emmie! Honey, it's okay. Just grab a paper towel."

"I don't know where dey are!"

"They're in the same place they always are: above the sink."

"I don't know how to get dem!"

"Just grab your blue chair. It's right there. Honey, right... Emmie, it's... no, there, sweetie. Look where mama's pointing. Right there. Baby, right there. It's where it always is. Right by the door. Emerson. Seriously."

She got the paper towels and helped me to the bathroom, where I saw things I never want to see again.

Y'all. There is stuff inside your foot. Gross stuff.

(DISCLAIMER: If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip the rest of this post, wherein I describe said gross stuff).

So, this is the foot. The red line is how I sliced it.


This is kind of what it looked like. Except not cloven and such (those are pigs' feet).

Oh, it gets better! Because I hadn't actually sliced it like ham. No, no. I sliced it like spiral ham. That means a portion of it was still attached. And that portion was all jammed up into the wound.

So, sitting on my bathroom counter, I took a pair of tweezers, poked them inside the wound (ow), pulled out the gross partially attached portion (ow) and straightened it out (ow). Can I just tell you what a badass I am?

I'm like this dude:




But... what do you do with that still-attached portion?

I don't know!

I started to cut it off. But... ow. So I washed the entire area with antibacterial soap (ow). Emerson sprayed it with Bactine (ow) and doused it with Neosporine (ow). I put the puzzle pieces back together (ow) and Emerson bandaged it up (ow).

I put a sock on under sandals and limped on into work. It really needed stitches, but that's a $100 co-pay I'm not willing to pay.

In the meantime, of course I contacted my landlord to come and fix this crap.

Emerson's been very fascinated with the whole procedure. She insists that she must check my boo-boo several times a day, and gets more confident each time. "Mmmhmm. Dat's doeend very well. Loots good, mama! Brenembered to keep it clean, and we'll change da Band-aids in da morneend."

This morning, we went through my daily wound-care process again. Y'all, I didn't intentionally involve Emerson into my gross foot wound. She totally took charge. "Sit here, mama. I goeend tate care ub dis."

She's a right old expert at it now. In fact, I think she really, really likes it. She lays out all the stuff (she calls them "'gredients," like we're cooking my foot up for dinner - gross!) and carefully and cheerfully applies everything. She doesn't even hurt me anymore.

"That's great Em! Thanks so much for helping!"

"Mama?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you fink you can call me 'Dahtor Emerson?'"

"Absolutely."

So, if you see my Doodlebug around town, "brenembered" that she's Dr. Emerson, now. And if you need any Band-aids, she says Dora or Spongebob Band-aids work best.