A year and five days after the amputation of my left big toe, I find myself wearing open toed sandals without socks for the the very first time.
I'm just doing it here around home, but it counts as a milestone for me.
Here I am looking down at my remaining four toes on my left foot. Four perfectly healthy toes, I might add. I can't see the scar, nor the stump of where my toe was. My remaining toes have curved ever so gently just a bit to the right. I suppose that is natural as they have had to compensate for the job of the big toe.
I've always commented that I could "hide" the fact that my big toe is missing inside a shoe. To be honest, I think I've been hiding it mainly from myself. I haven't wanted to look at my foot because I haven't wanted to be reminded that I'm different from the majority of people out there and that I feel so imperfect.
My thinking was that I was taking a positive attitude. I was trying to convince myself that it was my silver lining to the situation. I told myself it could have been worse. I'm not so sure it was as positive as I thought.
It's probably time I reach some sort of acceptance. By that I mean by being sincere with myself. I need to stop quietly blaming and hating myself for the amputation. Who am I to think that if a team of doctors couldn't save my toe, how could have I had some sort of forethought to change the series of events that occurred?
That's a big task for me and I believe I'm up for it. I need to do it for my soul.
In the very beginning of my diabetic journey I realized that I needed to take control of my health care. By that, I mean that I knew the doctors couldn't treat me to the best of their abilities if I wasn't in tune with my body. I knew I held the keys to drive the car.
I've become good at watching my physical body and keeping track of what it does and where to expect my little bumps in the road. I've been good at recognizing patterns.
Where I have been lacking is in comforting myself. My big goal when I first lost the toe was physically healing. I wanted my blood sugar under control so that I could heal fast. I set about changing my lifestyle. My eye has recently been on the goal of losing enough weight that I can be off prescription medication. The positive changes that hypnosis has created within me to get my mind right for weight loss are now spilling into other areas of my life.
In my mind it has always been my fault that my toe had to be ampuated. I've never said to myself, "It's ok. You're still beautiful." I've been saying, "Don't you dare let it happen again." I've not been as nice to myself as I would have been to someone else in the same situation. I've always seen it as detracting from my character and by no means enhancing it. I'm realizing that my perceived positive attitude was far from the reality. I wasn't giving my soul a chance to heal.
Wearing the sandals at home is an effort to begin some self-forgiveness and acceptence. I don't think I'm ready to show my foot to the world just yet. Plus there's that issue of the doctors always wanting me to wear socks. My loathing of socks is another post entirely.
I didn't get to this point by myself. I've been encouraged. So today, I look down at four toes in their nakedness in a pair of my favorite comfy sandals. It's a milestone because I thought I would never wear them again.
Thanks for reading.
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