A royal pain in the...

toe. Pinkie toe, to be exact. My little toe has been sore for over a week and I didn't think too much about it because it's sandal weather and I have been wearing my FitFlops non-stop. When Dave and I were walking all over Maryland I noticed that my toe was incredibly sore and felt as if it was broken. But I couldn't remember hitting it on anything and if I did break it, it would have been bruised. (Ask me how I know.)

So Wednesday night I was delicately inspecting my way-too-sore toe and discovered a small purple lump on the underside where the toe connects to the ball of my foot. I saw the doctor on Thursday and he confirmed my suspicions - I have a blood clot in my toe.

I'm supposed to take baby aspirin and do warm foot soaks, which is fine by me. I'm thrilled he didn't say "surgery". The warm foot soaks are nice - I put a small tub in the bathtub and filled it with almost-hot water and a handful of Dead Sea Salt, then sat on the edge of the bathtub and read till the water went cold. The book I'm reading, 'A Gracious Plenty' by Sheri Reynolds, is really good! Anyway, I go back in 2 weeks to have my toe checked again.

It was kinda weird having the doctor play with my clammy feet. I took my right sneaker off so he could check the lump but he wanted to see the left one too so he could compare the pulse. I wasn't expecting that. My left foot is sporting a dolphin toe ring that my son's girlfriend gave me for Christmas. The doc said I got 5 extra points for the ring, plus 5 more because my legs were shaved. Ha! Wait till he sees me next time. I'm tempted to paint my toenails blue and put henna designs on the tops of my feet just to see what he says!

Oh, and you have to try the FitFlops! I love them! I have 2 pair of Walkstars in black, one pair in red, and another pair in bronze. I don't recommend the colors with white soles because they tend to get dirty in between your foot and the sole and then they look really grubby. But the bronze color is new, kind of shimmery & shiny, and very pretty!