2017 Feb 19^th

Donald J. Trump has experienced the adulation in Melbourne FL that would normally be reserved for the principal in the “second coming.” He has now departed for Mar-el-Lago where he will continue with his plans for the destruction of the republic.

For today, I will write about something unrelated to Trump. It is something from “More of the same,” a collection of essay/memoirs I published in 2009. The title of this piece is “Stepping on a Rock.”  

Stepping on a Rock     

A long time ago, when I was much younger and didn’t know any better, I took up jogging. I had a track laid out along the streets in the little suburb where I lived. It covered about a mile or so and was quite safe because there was virtually no traffic and no dogs. I was embarrassed because I wasn’t able to run very far before I was out of breath, had contracted a severe pain in my side, or both. Running the entire distance without stopping was out of the question. Being a psychologist, I set myself an intermediate goal, several in fact. There were telephone poles along my route so I made it my goal to jog from one pole to the next without stopping. If I adjusted my speed properly, I could do it. When I got to my target pole, I stopped jogging and walked until the next pole in the series arrived. By that time I had caught my breath and the pain in my side had gone away. Then I would gird up my loins and begin jogging toward my next target.

I must tell you that this activity was every bit as boring to engage in as it is to read about. At least engaging in it was supposed to be healthy. Perhaps I could find some way to add a tad of uncertainty, an element of risk, to this effort. I decided to run/jog a part of the distance between the poles with my eyes closed. It seemed that if I didn’t watch my slow, agonizing, progress from one pole to the next, the time would pass faster. As I look back at this decision, it seems somewhat less than sensible; indeed, it seems absurd. I did it anyway and it worked—for a while.

I was not insane. I didn’t run with my eyes closed for more than about fifteen seconds at a time, and then I would peek to see where I was. I picked my spots carefully. I only came to grief once. I stepped on a rock with the instep of my left foot and severely twisted my ankle. I was able to limp home. My wife looked at my fattening ankle. “What happened?” she said.

“I stepped on a rock while I was jogging and twisted my ankle.”

“How on earth did that happen?”

“I didn’t see the damn thing. It was just at the edge of the curb.”

I wasn’t going to tell her that I didn’t see it because I was running with my eyes shut. Wives needn’t be privy to all of a man’s secrets. The left side of my left foot was now very colorful and my wife insisted that we go at once to the hospital emergency room. So we did.

The physician on duty was a general practitioner who had a large practice in a town south of us. Our little hospital did not have emergency physicians to staff the E.R., so all the local physicians took turns. I was treated quite promptly. The physician took an x-ray and declared that I had a broken foot and that I would need a cast. Oh, heavens, I guess that means no jogging for a while. Indeed it did. I was devastated. The cast was to remain in place for six weeks. He told me to call his office and make an appointment six weeks hence to have another x-ray to check the healing and to have the cast removed.

 About two weeks later I was due for my yearly physical. My regular physician was surprised to see me hobble in. There was the expected, “What happened to you?” followed by the same response I gave my wife. I know there are some things you might tell your physician that you wouldn’t tell your wife, but there are also some things that neither one of them needs to know.  The doctor asked if I would like to see which bone had actually been broken. One does not break one’s foot. Rather one breaks one or more bones in one’s foot. (Notice how the ones proliferate once one lets them get started.) “Yes,” I said, “I would like to see that.” My x-ray had been sent to his office after my visit to the E.R. He pulled it out and stuck it up against his light box and showed me the spot. It was a slight separation of the fifth metatarsal from its base. That is the bone on the left side of the left foot that leads to the little toe. Stepping on the rock caused the foot to roll to the side producing the break. I was told that it was a common fracture and should heal completely in about six weeks.

Time passed. The cast was a nuisance; it itched. I could not scratch where it itched. At last it was time for the appointment to determine if I had properly healed and to have the cast removed. During this interim I had found some additional information about my E.R. physician. He had a huge practice and he had his own clinic about two miles outside of a nearby town. Our appointment was for four in the afternoon. We were shown to an examining room where in due course the gentleman arrived. There were four examining rooms with patients waiting in each one. The first step was to x-ray the foot. I sat so that my foot and leg rested on a plate while he carefully directed his x-ray machine at my upper ankle. “Uh, doctor,” I said, “It’s not my ankle; it’s my foot.”

“Oh? Why yes, of course.”

And the apparatus was redirected at my foot. He left to attend to someone else while a technician developed the radiograph. Then he bustled back in. He took one look at the x-ray and said, “Look, you can see how nicely this has healed. Not a sign of a break.”

And indeed there wasn’t a sign of a break. He was pointing to the proximal end of the first metatarsal, just below the big toe, which had not been broken at all. “I think that is so nicely healed that we can get rid of this cast.” With some effort, I kept my mouth shut. He then got out his cast cutter. This is a fearsome, noisy, machine that cuts a hard surface with ease but will not damage soft tissue. It has a reciprocating fine tooth circular saw blade that moves back and forth just a fraction of an inch. It makes a hell of a racket, but it does the job.

When he finished and the cast fell off, I was surprised at the amount of calf muscle I’d lost. I knew that would soon recover. I then thanked him for his excellent treatment. He asked us to make an appointment for a re-check in about two weeks, but I said I thought my own doctor could handle things from here. Then we left while I could still suppress my laughter. Thank God he was not a heart surgeon. I never jogged with my eyes shut again.