Episode #002 "Where, oh where, did my little toe go..."

I am a double amputee. That sort of sounds worse than it really is for me. Let me explain. I lost my left leg to a below knee amputation, related to a bone infection, related to an ulcer on the bottom of my foot. I have diabetes, I didn’t take care of it or the foot and the foot got infected. The infection got into the bone and I had to have my leg removed. That was in August 2005. I have a prosthesis now and usually can get along pretty good. Two weeks ago I had to have the pinky toe on my good foot amputated. Good foot-that’s an oxymoron for my circumstances. Hence I am a double amputee, one left foot less, one right toe less.

I was awake for the surgery. I didn’t watch it, but I was aware of what was going on. During the final few minutes, I heard the surgeon say “OH shoot” As my friend Maqz says, we all know what oh shoot means. However in this case it was not bad. He simply was making a request to the nurse assisting him to shoot a little saline in the wound to clean it out. Later the surgeon remarked that that was why they like to have people put under for their surgeries. Since the surgery I have been recovering without problems.

While recovering (and I feel guilty saying that. It was a 22 minute surgery and he wanted me to stay off the foot for a couple of days…), I was listening to Michael Crichton’s book “Next”. In it, there’s a lot of talk about human tissue and genetics. That got me wondering. Whatever happened to my little toe? I mean it didn’t have any value to anyone except me. It’s not like they could use it for a transplant. It’s not like they could use it for research I don’t think. It was just a little toe, squished and red and somewhat swollen.

In an old episode of M.A.S.H., Hawkeye does unnecessary surgery to remove an officer’s appendix, in order to prevent the officer from going back to the front and doing reckless things that would end up killing soldiers in his platoon. In a scene where he explains why he did it, he says “It was pink and healthy and I tossed it in the can”. That makes me wonder if that’s something similar to what my surgeon said. Was it “It was pink, not quite healthy and I tossed it in the can.” Or, is there another side of this story. I doubt I will ever find out more details. To be honest, I don’t miss it either.