It’s So Small

Yesterday I cut my toe.

Pretty bad, actually. The words gashed, sliced, or even slashed, would probably be more appropriate here, but in the interest of not completely grossing you out, I will leave it at cut.

The story of how it happened is strange. If you know me, you know I’m a klutz.

Always have been, always will be. I embrace it each day as I fall over nothing… 😉

I was feeding Maelie some cereal in the dining room and got up to grab something in the kitchen. There is a tiny little step-up into our kitchen, and I assume it’s there from when one of the previous owners redid the floor and added granite tile. I know it’s there and don’t even think about it most of the time.

(This is common in Indonesia in many rooms, too, so I think I’m just used to floors that aren’t level.) I didn’t really trip…my right foot made it into the kitchen just fine, but my left big toe…somehow found the edge of that tile.

Oh, Pain. PAin. PAIn. PAIN.

I was scared to look at first…I knew it was bad.

(And I’m not really a fan of blood, either.) While I often display drama queen characteristics, I do actually have a decently high tolerance for pain.

And. This. Hurt.

There was so much blood that I couldn’t really tell how bad it was at first. Looking at it made my stomach turn, so I grabbed some paper towels and just held them over my toe, hoping the initial blood flow wasn’t as seemingly endless as I thought it might be.

It bled for over an hour, and when I could finally examine it without wanting to completely throw up, I discovered it was pretty deep…which wasn’t really a surprise.

So then comes the question, To stitch or not to stitch?

I’m not a fan of stitches, but even more, not a fan of scars. Also, summer is coming, and that equals flip flops and Mel in all of her barefoot glory. I did NOT want a huge, disgusting scar.

I called Tobin, but there was only so much he could do from work.

We ended up skyping and turn ing on

the video just so he could help me figure out what to do. He couldn’t tell much, so we decided to wait until that night to make a decision.

All day long I limped around because it hurt too much to actually step on my big toe. By later afternoon it was feeling somewhat better, but the question of whether I needed stitches remained as I stared at the gaping wound on my toe.

Tobin got home, and we decided it was one of those cuts that could go either way.

If we went in, they would probably stitch it; if we didn’t, it would probably heal fine but take longer. We opted for no stitches, which I’m still kind of questioning, but bandaids and butterfly tape seem to be doing the trick ok.

Anyway, all of that leads up to my story…cause, you know me, I need a story to go with my story!

I’ve been running with a friend 2-3 times a week in the mornings.

We had planned to go running this morning. Since my toe didn’t really hurt too bad last night, I just bandaged it up and decided it would be okay to try running.

As we started to jog today, though…I noticed something. Not only was my toe starting to hurt again, but my outer left calf muscle was really aching. I was puzzled by this until I remembered…

I’d been completely off balance the day before, not really stepping down on my big toe at all. That put a lot of stress on other parts of my foot and leg. And when I started to run this morning, I was doing the same thing because my toe couldn’t take the blunt force of crashing onto the pavement with each step.

I was completely off balance, and the run? Well…it was more of a run one minute, walk two kind of outing. And each time I ran, it just hurt.

Tobin spent some time yesterday giving me “big toe” facts. He’s such a goofball…but one interesting fact was that each big toe is capable of supporting up to 40% of a person’s body weight. So, obviously it’s important. Then, he was in all his glory, when he informed me that the first known invention of prosthetics

was for the big toe.

I smiled, nodded, and just hoped I would never need one.

😉

As I was driving home this morning after my run, I started (kept?) thinking about my big toe…it’s so small.

But it’s affecting everything I do.

And then? I thought about my heart. About how, most of the time, what’s going on in there is good.

But what about those moments when I get jealous and mean

? Where do the jealousy and meanness hide

? In little corners of my heart, where I’ve pushed them, hoping to hide them.

And while seemingly small, they can really affect my family, my friends, those around me, myself.

Those things that are so small…can sometimes make an impact bigger than we ever want them to.

Lots to think about tonight.