Feet

Jane and Jill talked about feet a lot. Checking your feet, keeping your feet warm, keeping your feet dry, wearing appropriate shoes, clipping toenails straight across, using a filament to check the sensation in the bottom of your feet, never-ever-ever going barefoot inside or outside, having your doctor check your feet, not having professional pedicures, and so on. When I attended another Diabetes Education Class, years later, the teacher also talked a lot about feet. So it must be a big deal. But I have a hard time thinking of it as a big deal, even after 3 very concerned Diabetes Education Teachers told me it is, maybe because my feet are just fine.

I have excellent sensation in my feet. When I step on something sharp (or bumpy, or cold, or hot), I know it, and although I try to remember not to go barefoot, it’s tough because I really like going barefoot. Or in socks. Especially really fun socks with little toe pockets or bumpy rubber bottoms or puffy animals on them. Not such a big fan of slippers or sandles, though. I do have a pair of crocs, which helps me to go barefoot less, but my natural instinct is to take my shoes off as soon as I enter a building (work excepted – public schools tend to frown on barefoot employees).

And it’s not that I don’t get how serious the feet thing is. After all, my father has already lost two of his toes to Diabetes and has lost pretty much all of the feeling in his feet. A guy I know at church is in a wheelchair with no legs below the knees due to diabetes. It’s serious. I get that. And I am certainly not stupid enough to go skipping through a vacant lot with my feet unfettered, so don’t worry overmuch about my feet. I try not to. But I do keep an eye on them.

Jane and Jill (and later, Diane) told me that there were many things to watch for when it comes to feet. Cuts, bruises, cracks, yada yada. They also told me that one sign that you are starting to lose circulation in your feet is that your toes stop growing hair. When I heard this, I was actually happy, for the first time since puberty, that I had hair on my toes! (I know that some people also grow hair on the tops of their feet, but I don’t recall ever shaving the tops of my feet. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not about that, in light of the circulation thing, but as I said before, I'm not all that hairy a person in the first place.)

So, now you know why I stopped shaving my toes. And why I love my hairy toes. Because as long as my toes are hairy, I know that the blood is flowing through them nicely, and that is a Very. Good. Thing. I love my hairy toes. I plan to keep them.