Knocks Me Off My Feet
Sometime in February, bundled in hoodies and blankets, a friend and I sat in my basement willing summer to arrive. At some point, the conversation turned to pedicures and I told my friend she had nice feet.
“Thank you?” She responded cautiously, wondering how I could possibly know what her feet looked like as they were presently sheathed in wool socks.
“I remember good feet,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Thank you?” She said again.
“It’s just that when you have feet like mine, you notice good feet like yours.”
“Ok,” she said, tucking her feet a little tighter beneath her body, silently questioning whether 2 a.m. was too late to make the 3-hour drive home.
Over time, I’ve come to understand all of my friends have good feet. Two could easily make it as foot models, and both are equally flattered and weirded out every time I tell them. Then again, I suppose most feet, and not just those of my friends, would be considered good feet when compared to mine.
You see, most people have feet that aren’t callused to the level of cheese grater status at the nail salon; feet that look beachy in the winter without toenail polish. Most people have feet that occupy ALL 10 toenails at the same time, and pinky toes that don’t require Band-Aids in all closed-toe shoes. In fact, I strongly suspect most people don’t have a routine for treating ingrown toenails or feet that make the average nail tech shake her head before pulling down her facemask and getting to work. My feet, sadly, are not most people.
My bare feet in the dirt on the third base line at Wrigley Field, June 2017.
Rather, my feet are hardened husks of dead skin that have been both cursed with bad genetics and beaten to pulp in the name of fancy shoes. I have bad feet, medical mystery toes, as I call them. Feet that no one wants to rub, and feet that put me in a constant state of foot envy. I covet good feet the way some women covet a tight ass. And honestly, I’m not ashamed of it. The heart wants what the heart wants.
When I was in high school, I had my first toenail removed. It was so ingrown that the entire thing needed to be taken off and after it grew back and the problem persisted, half of the nail was detached permanently. It was during this time I learned about the cleansing powers of betadine and the importance of keeping a freshly separated toenail bed dry in the shower. I also learned that at 15, I had no shame in flirting with my podiatrist. After all, he was young and kind and he wasn’t afraid to touch my toes - you’re damn right I wore a full face of makeup every time I went to see him.
From then, I lost a big toenail once or twice more and pinky toenails more times than I can count (including one last summer that I didn’t even notice had come off until about 30 minutes after stubbing my toe). And I wish I could blame it all on my Dad’s gnarly toe genes, but for most of my life, I’ve abused my feet with fashionable reckless abandon.
I’ve loved high heels for as long as I can remember. My Dad even tells people I came out of the womb in heels with one leg up. When you couple that kind of love with the confidence and ability to actually walk in them, you have approximately 20 years of fabulousness and one pair of very victimized tootsies.
At 24, when I was working as a low-level marketing coordinator, I once wore a pair of 4-inch heels for a day of city walking and event-hopping (which included multiple trips up and down the turf of the Indianapolis Colts practice facility), that left my feet so bloody and blistered I could barely make it to my car at the end of the day. I couldn’t wear shoes for the rest of that weekend, but I sure as hell strapped on a new pair come Monday. That’s dedication. It’s also gross misconduct.
It was around that time I began regularly visiting questionable nail salons and ended up with toenail fungus under both big toenails. Fantastic (and fitting). But polish helped, so I continued placing a great deal of importance on the shoes. Hell, at least my feet still looked good - from afar.
The fungus and reoccurring ingrown toenails persisted until the morning after I returned from France in 2016. I had been back in the country for approximately 8 hours when I woke up jetlagged to take Van to daycare.
Just as I was getting ready to leave him for the day, Van came running at me to give me one last hug goodbye. It was then he clipped the big toenail on my sandal-clad left foot just hard enough to pop most of the nail off. I looked down at the bloody pool in my Birkenstock. “I’m going to get out of here before he notices the carnage,” I said calmly to his daycare teacher, and I quickly returned home to assess the situation.
I’ve told this story several times and every time I do, I make sure to mention my deep admiration for the guy who cut off his own arm after being trapped in a cave for 128 hours. I could barely make it through the self-removal of the remainder of my big toenail, so I can only imagine the kind of pain and desperation he felt. Still, once I got it off, I felt a kind of relief I hadn’t experienced since that day when I was 24 and I finally removed my 4-inch heels. There was no more fungus on the toe. No more ingrown toenail. No toenail at all. And although the toe still ached from the recent trauma, it was nothing compared to the constant dull yet sometimes shooting pain I felt in my left toe on a daily basis. It took approximately 10 months for the nail to grow back and every day I said I could care less if it did because that’s how good it felt to live pain free.
[NOTE: I actually have pictures from the excruciating removal and aftermath, which I’ve chosen not to include here. However, if you’re curious and want to see pics, simply email themorganyouknow574@gmail.com and I’ll send them to you. Don’t worry, I won’t think you’re weird. I was the one who stopped mid-suffering to take pictures of my toe in the first place.]
Nearly three years later, the toenail remains in pretty good shape save for the every other month ingrown nails I’m still forced to remove (which I’ve found is easier when the toe is completely dry and not wet with a variety of pointy, flat objects and a liberal amount of Chloraseptic spray applied directly to the nail). Unfortunately, the right toe, the one that was only partially there following the surgery with the cute podiatrist, still had a long way to go.
The right toenail was thick and horribly discolored. Polish barely made a dent and pedicurists regularly scolded me for not having it removed. As I mentioned, I’ve had toenails professionally removed and it was always so much more painful than the time Van and I essentially tag-teamed to rip one off ourselves. I didn’t want to see another podiatrist if I could help it, so I began purposely putting my right foot in harm’s way, telepathically willing Van to make the same accidental mistake he made with the left. It never happened, and at some point, I realized this line of thinking was ridiculous.
It wasn’t until last July while on vacation with the foot models that I began researching what I could do to naturally rid myself of the fungus. At some point, I came across an article that recommended applying Vicks VapoRub to the toenail on a daily basis. This endorsement really resonated with me as I swear by Vicks the way my mother swore by Dimetapp. I use Vicks not only the way it was intended, but also on the bottom of my feet when I’m plagued by a particularly awful cough (try it, it really does work). Since it was already a constant staple in my medicine cabinet, I decided to give it a go.
For 9 months, I applied Vicks VapoRub to my big toenail almost every night then wrapped it with a Band-Aid before bed. For the most part, I did not wear polish during this experiment, but when I did, I still rigorously applied the Vicks. The other day I went in for one of my first pedicures since the trial began and after the pedicurist made it through without even one raised eyebrow, I glanced down and noticed how much thinner and less discolored the nail had become. It was like magic (well, 9 months of patient magic), but it worked.
Gnarly toes, August 2018 (one month after starting Vicks).
(Not as) gnarly toes, April 2019 (nine months into using Vicks).