We Who Are About to Be Butterflied ...

Well, tune in next week — or maybe later this week — for your usual DACSIH? entry. At the moment I’m rushing around to get a few things done before an early bed-time: and a 5:45 appointment tomorrow to have bunion surgery.

Not a growth on the foot, as I thought myself, but a malformation of the bones behind the big toes, bunions make it impossible for the first phalanges (toebones of the big toes) to slide atop the metatarsals when the heel comes up. What that means in practical terms is that your big toes have a click that hurts like the bejezzus when you try to walk (not fun for XC skiing, either). For anybody, that would be a problem that might make one consider surgery; for a dog handler who needs to be able to walk and walk, and who’s already done the medical treatment bit for his lower back and left knee ...

Well, I always said I wouldn’t go for surgery if I had a choice. My only other choice is to lose my ability to field with a dog in a few years.

Anyhow, partly because of new techniques and partly because my own case isn’t yet extreme, my doc is at the moment only anticipating three days on crutches (though she says some patients stay on the crutches a few days longer because it’s more comfortable). After that, six to eight weeks in Mickey Mouse boots, but more-or-less mobile. Obviously I’ll be a base camp weenie at any searches that come up before mid- to late-May. Target, which doc thinks is reasonable, is going to Fire School early June, and a normal summer. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, I’ve run out of time to write my usual blog tonight, though if next week goes well enough, I may have some time to do a post — though I’m only supposed to be on crutches for three days, it’s Vicodin for the first week, so I’m not doing any driving and am taking the week off. Hopefully I won’t be too much of a crybaby, or too zonked out, to post on an interesting finding on the code that helps the nose identify the components of a complex smell — or not.