Bad Toe Day

It was a dark and stormy night.

Who says I can’t write fiction. Except this is no story. Shadow ate my toe and I’m glad. That’s right, folks -- glad! Why? Only because that pooch saved my life, that’s all.

I’ve told no one about this until now. Call it embarrassment, vanity, a self esteem problem, it doesn’t matter. It is what it was, and I’m disclosing forthwith.

It happened this way. The lightning, the thunder, a miserable day at the Art Fair, me feeling like dog shit -- which is what I turn out to be by the end of this story – my age was catching up with me.

So what’s Shadow got to do with anything? Only this. It was Shadow’s actions that helped uncover an undiagnosed diabetic condition and led to the treatment that saved my life.

I knew for a while I had a foot problem, but I laughed it off as a persistent case of gout related to my adult onset George the Third Diet. Being an amateur guitar player and fallen scientologist I pooh-poohed my devoted companion’s every remonstration that I should seek care. Finally, about a month ago I reluctantly consented to keep the next day’s appointment, which I had doggedly vowed to skip.

Knowing I had no intention of going was still no reason to dispense with my usual pre-medical appointment ritual of smoking and drinking like a fiend, the hard wired lie in my head justifying this with the thought that tomorrow would be the last of my profligate ways, and that, further, from now on I would mend my habits and God would tune up my liver for a final Methusalan run. Where was I?

Oh yeah. So I passed out. When I awoke, my faithful hound was beside me, licking at the gangrenous stump that was once my big toe.

B. rushed me to University of Michigan Emergency, where the doctors found a bone infection and amputated the rest of my toe.

The End