A Tale of Two Toes

I’ve never broken one of my bones before…before this week. And I did it in a spectacular way—in bed, sleeping. Honestly.

Our dog leaped onto the bed about 2:00 in the morning, and I reacted automatically to push myself up and out from under him—except that my foot slipped off the edge of the bed and my pinky toe caught on the base beneath the mattress. (At least, that’s what I think happened. I was sleeping, after all.) Then OUCH! OUCH! OUCH! My toe really hurt!

It was dark and chilly and I didn’t want to get up. (The dogs seize possession of the covers when an opportunity arises.) But my pain was dramatic. I had to do something. I decided if I relented enough to fetch an ice pack, the cold would calm the hurting so I’d have some hope of returning to sleep. I hobbled out to the kitchen to fetch an ice pack from the freezer. (We always have ice packs ready. When you’re klutsy, you need backup.) The ice pack didn’t stay on the last two toes well, but I secured it with the sheet and insisted on going back to sleep, anyway.

By morning, I knew I was in trouble. My husband inspected my injury. “That’s definitely broken,” he announced with authority (having broken his in the past). “You’d better ice it.” (What a novel idea!) We taped the last two toes together and I settled into our recliner to watch the healing begin (which is slower than watching paint dry). At last I have time to read…a lot…I have time to read a lot. I can’t bear to wear shoes.

Personally, I think breaking a toe while in bed sleeping has to be a special talent. Who does that? Now, as I sit nursing my foot (the colors of which would look more appropriate on a TV corpse), I have to wonder what I can learn from this experience. Certainly, I can’t sleep more carefully, although before I retire I can check to make sure the mattress is in place so the base doesn’t stick out. Beyond that, what? What was this about?

Perhaps I need to slow down. (Was my pace fast in the first place?) Or maybe I need to stop feeling guilty for spending so much time sitting at my laptop writing. After all, sitting kills…or so I’ve read. But I’m a writer. I might be able to concentrate while languishing in a bubble bath (if it didn’t cool off so quickly), but I’m not trained to compose while standing, and I’m definitely not the dictation type. My brain needs to see print.

Maybe I’m being too egotistical. Perhaps this accident wasn’t about me at all. This is a freaky year, stuffed with peculiar and often upsetting happenings. Nothing seems to be too bizarre to be real. I know I can’t blame climate change or political ire or even racism. Maybe, in a time when blame zooms around us like gnats on a sticky summer day, I can’t blame ANYTHING. Could my injury be one of those freak occurrences that mean…absolutely nothing? Woe to my toe to be thus trivialized.