Superglue Surgery

Confession time. Sometimes I get these really horrible cracks in my heels. I don’t mean a little dry skin or a scrape. I mean a deep fissure in my heel that bleeds and cracks open further every time I take a step. Imagine a Ballpark Hotdog. Now imagine putting said hotdog in a microwave for a wee bit too long. The way the dog looks when you rescue it from the cooker? Yep, that’s more or less what happens to my heels.

So yesterday I woke up with a crack in not one, but both heels. They weren’t to the horrible stage yet so I did what I thought was best – I soaked and sloughed and lotioned them until my feet were so slick and greasy that I had to put on socks just to keep from picking up every strand of dog hair on my carpet or from slipping as if I were on a sheet of ice in my kitchen. I figured they would still be a bit tender this morning, but I really felt like I had caught it in time. But alas, I did not.

This morning we did a trial run of waking the kids up early and such as they start back to school tomorrow. So up I jump out of bed, ready to put on smiles and administer tickles to anyone with a grumpy morning face when to my dismay as I took the first step out of bed I almost crumbled from the searing pain of flesh being freshly opened on the bottom of my foot. I won’t bore you with the mundane details of the day, but just know that I accomplished all tasks whilst on tiptoe. It hurt too much to put my feet down.

I mentioned my dilemma to my mom. Let me say this first….my mom has diabetes and therefore has extensive knowledge of how to care for a wide variety of foot ailments. Our conversation went something like this:

Mom: “Do you have any superglue?”

Me: “Um no, no I don’t. Should I?”

Mom: “Yes. You need to pour alcohol down in the crack and when it dries you need to superglue the skin closed.”

Me: “Um, what?”

Mom: “It’s gonna burn like hell. You may want to send the kids outside when you do it.”

Me: “Are you sure there’s not another option??? I don’t like the sound of this at all.”

Mom: “Lol. Not that I’m aware of. That’s what Pam [her doctor] did to me except she took a scalpel and trimmed the skin around it first.”

Me: “Um, well…..”

Mom: “So…are you going to do it?”

Me: “Oh I suppose. It’s that or have Jake carry me everywhere and that’s just not very practical.”

Mom: “No, no it isn’t.”

After dinner we trolleyed off to the grocers to get superglue and a set of brass balls…..I found the superglue.

Jacob and my 13-year-old son held my leg in the air as I perched on the side of the tub and they poured peroxide into the fissures on my heels. I chickened out on the rubbing alcohol. I didn’t have any, I forgot to buy some and I was NOT about to waste my Jameson on this adventure. Mom wasn’t lying, it burned like hell. The superglue was no better. Whatever agent is in that shit that makes it stick like that burns.

My alarm is set for 6am in the morning. I have to get up and be cheery so that my kids are happy and excited about the first day of school. I guess I’ll see then if all of this was worth it. I’m still a wee bit afraid to put pressure on my heels. So for now, I’m tiptoeing off to bed. Sweet dreams.