When Picking Up a Peanut With Your Toes Can Make You Cry

My first physical therapy appointment was Friday afternoon. My therapist, a nice lady named Lara, first showed me some exercises -- stretching, trying to flex my ankle and foot, and the like -- then gave me a foot massage and iced my ankle for 15 minutes. The worst pain was, oddly, during the foot massage when Lara flexed my big toe, a toe that really didn't want to be flexed at all -- as I discovered when she bent it at the joint, it objected, and I yelped.

One of my take-home exercises to increase flexibility is to pick up things from the floor with my toes -- ideally marbles, but I can start with a larger item, like a rock, and work my way down as my toes became more nimble. Much to my chagrin, in the therapy session I was unable to pick up anything regardless of the size. My toes just hovered, making what I sensed as clutching attempts, but in reality barely moving, and certainly not gripping.

I have done my home exercises a couple times today, and not having any marbles handy I had to improvise. What I found was peanuts in the shell -- a tad bigger, but reasonably sized with the added bonus that they contain a built-in snack for later! (please don't dwell on the fact that I am willing to eat something whose shell I have been moving around on the floor with my bare, now scaly, pale, and skin-peeling foot). At first, I couldn't do much other than wave my foot over the peanuts, making futile grasping motions and unsuccessfully willing them to levitate up to my toes. Then I got one! Some more frustrating attempts, and then another! All told, I grabbed 10 peanuts off that floor before I was done, and then started crying, relief and frustration both contending for top billing. I can see now that this recovery will be achieved by small victories -- but small victories are still victories!