I was sick yesterday…just one of those achy yucky dizzy tummy things. I sat on the couch so much I left a dent and got so sick of watching TV that I finally just turned it off and sat in silence for a little while.
Sickness for me is a funny thing. I never think I’m sick until I start feeling better. I always think I’m sad or depressed and it isn’t until I check my temp that I realize that I’m SICK. By the time I take to my bed and rest, it’s halfway over.
I also have a weirdly high pain tolerance. It’s not that I’m tough or strong, I just sincerely do not feel pain like most people do. I had both my children natural, which is for the BIRDS and I highly recommend the use of drugs. I just never think to ask for them until it’s too late and by then, by golly, there’s a baby.
I’ve had a few minor surgeries in my life and I have recovered from every one of them without the use of pain meds. Mostly because pain pills make me puke and be dizzy and faint-y. So, I’d rather hurt. I’ve gotten to where if I have surgery, I tell the doctor to not even write the prescription for the pain pills, I’m not going to fill it and if I fill it, I’m going to throw it away untouched in a year. I’d rather not even have them in the house, to be honest. In this neck of the woods, people will break into your house to steal pain medicine, even if you have known them their entire lives and loved them like family. They’ll break in, break your heart and break your trust and you will never look at them the same again. Don’t ask me how I know this, I’m not going to talk about it…but suffice it to say, I’d just rather not have the drugs here and tempt anyone lest they break in and Clint or I have to shoot them. And…we know we would. We don’t want to do that. So, we don’t keep pain meds here and never will. God willing.
But today I feel better and I’ve been wanting to paint Clint’s shop bathroom and decoupage old ads of trucks and tractors all over the wall. He and I both love that kind of stuff, those old ads that say out dated, funny things…so wordy, they’re like reading an article. Of brands that no longer exist. Ads aimed for women for freezers and stoves, the women happily cooking in heels and pearls and dark red lipstick, perky and sweet…impossibly clean children running underfoot, her husband coming in the door in a suit, carrying a briefcase, wearing a smile, his hat in his hand.
The ads make me think of the old “Dick and Jane” books, where they were forever playing with “Spot” and mom made cookies every day in a dress and dad wore green suits and drove sleek, finned cars. I read those books in 1976 in the first grade. My home life was nothing like that. Was anybody’s?
No one got sick in the Dick and Jane books and they rarely got dirty or hurt. They apparently didn’t go to the bathroom, either as I never saw mention of one in the book. I surveyed the pictures of their homes, looking for the outdoor toilet. Nope.
So I painted and thought about these things, what ad I would put where, how they would best fit on the wall.
I walked outside to get my stepladder and when I came back in, I stubbed my pinky toe on my right foot on the chainsaw sitting on the concrete floor. I had Lasik when I was thirty, a wonderful operation ridding me of my thick, goofy glasses I had worn since I was 7. I recovered without pain meds and was shocked to be able to see very well within just a few hours of the surgery. One thing it did leave me with was that my eyes don’t adjust to light changes very well. If I walk from bright light into dimness, I’m completely blind for about 15 seconds until my eyes adjust. And that’s what I had done, walked into Clint’s shop trudging forward right onto the chainsaw. “ow ow ow” I muttered, catching myself on the pipe machine, nearly falling. I thought nothing else of it and started painting.
I had on black, spongy flip flops and noticed my right one stuck to my foot. I thought I just had splattered some paint on it and painted away. I had to kick off my flip flop to climb up onto the toilet lid to reach the top of the wall. When I stepped down, I noted I had tracked blood all over the top of it. I sat on my step stool and pulled my foot up to check.
Well, shoot. I thought. Had I noticed how badly my foot was cut, I probably would have applied pressure and…most assuredly…had to go get a few stitches. But, ignorance is bliss, and wearing spongy flip flops, covering it with latex paint, and standing in one place for a long time did the trick. What’s weird is…even though it’s deep and I now have cleaned it and placed a large bandaid on it…it still doesn’t hurt.
It made me think of another time I cut my foot, so long ago. I was 15 and a sweet lady named Cathy from our church with 3 young daughters took Bobbie and I swimming with her and her girls. Everyone wanted to race into the water and paddle out as far as we could on our air mattresses. Bobbie and I took off, the little girls behind us cheering and clapping. I felt something sting on the bottom of my left foot. Ignored it. Swam out 100 feet from shore. Climbed up onto our air mattresses, giggling and breathing hard. Bobbie pointed to my left foot. I looked down and saw the dark trail of blood in the water. I hoisted my left foot up onto my right thigh to look and saw the deep, glistening wound running partway down the length of the bottom of my foot. . Later, I would find the jagged, dark brown broken beer bottle I had stepped on and pick them up to prevent Cathy’s daughters from getting hurt. Blood shot over my shoulder. I pressed the edges back together. “Does it hurt?” asked Bobbie as she pulled me and my air mattress back to shore. “no…it just feels…weird.” I limped up to Cathy. Her face went white and she started gathering stuff up. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m taking you to the ER!” she said. “No, no no! I’m fine! I’ll just sit her and hold pressure. It’ll stop bleeding before long.” She was adamant about taking me at first, but I didn’t want to ruin the trip. So, I sat on the shore, holding pressure and every 15 minutes or so, I’d take a quick peek and blood would SHOOT out. So I quit doing that.
A couple of hours later, she took us home. I got out, still bleeding and limped into the house. I found gauze and ACE bandage wrap and for the next 5 days, I limped around changing the bandage and replacing the wrap. I should have had stitches, I know. Someone should have taken me, I know that too. But that’s not how it went down and that’s not the point of my story.
I dug slivers of glass out of my foot for years, the last piece came out 10 years ago. I worked in surgery and noticed the bottom of my foot itching. I sat down in a chair in the OR in between cases, pulled off my shoe and looked. That’s when one of my favorite foot doctors came in to dictate the previous case. “Whatcha doin?” he asked and sat in the other chair. “oh, looking at my foot. I have glass in it. “ I told him the story and as I told it, he took my foot into his hands and looked and said “Good heavens. How many stitches?” I told him the story and he looked astonished. He offered to dig the rest of the glass out, but I said “nah, I’ll do it when I get home.” and I did…soaking my foot that night, using my fingers and tweezers to finally pull the last of that day on the lake out of my foot.
I don’t have to dig glass out of my foot today, just some chain oil and paint and dirt. It still doesn’t hurt…it just feels….weird.
I look at the bottom of my right foot. I can still faintly see the scar that begins just to the left of my big toe, trailing down a couple of inches. All the glass is gone now, so it no longer is red, raised and angry. It’s just a scar, a part of me…part of the garment that is me, the seams showing, where God…the tailor that He is…made a dart in me and stitched it up together in His will and His time.
I think of scars and lakes and summer and hateful, broken glass beer bottles and I paint, the weight of my body holding tightly shut the slice on my foot, preventing it from bleeding, creating yet another seam, another dart that God made..the tailor that He is..making another dart in me, stitching it up in His will and in His time, before I even knew it was there.
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