“Kiki,” our barely-teenaged daughter, stayed home sick from school on Friday. She was overstressed, under-rested, and probably had a cold, so we let her sleep in and do homework.

And then I took her with me for all of my fun stuff all afternoon long. The message I’m sending? “If you don’t get your homework done on time, and don’t feel good, you get to have a big play-date with Dad.” I’m obviously a horrible parent.

We had a great time.

First, off to the movies. We met my friends Richard and Rodney before the show, and snacked on some fried cheese and onion rings. Kiki enjoyed The Day The Earth Stood Still, and enjoyed making fun of it afterwards. She liked it more than the rest of us did.

Next, Kiki, Bob Defendi, and I had a late lunch at the mall. She complained that Bob and I were boring. Bob? BORING? Man, I could talk to Bob all day and never get bored. But yeah, if I had to sum up our discussion with a title it would be “marketing principles for independent artists and creators,” and I can see how a thirteen-year-old girl might find that a little dull.

Next up we went shopping, quickly, for Christmas presents.

At 5:30 (we’ve been together now since 12:30… FIVE HOURS) we headed over to Brandon Sanderson‘s place where Kiki sat quietly while Brandon, Dan, Jordo and I recorded two episodes of our (hugely popular!) podcast “Writing Excuses.” The subject matter? “Theme” was the first one, and “Violence” was the second. Neither came out like I expected, but both came out really good. You’ll be able to hear ’em on the 29th and the 5th.

I asked Kiki if that was boring, and she said it was not. She also said that she learned stuff. So we had her record a stinger for “Writing Excuses” in which she tells us it’s safe for kids. I mean, if it’s not boring and you’re learning, it’s GOT to be safe, right?

By 6:45 we were at Dragon’s Keep, where Kiki was supposed to finish the last of her algebra and I was supposed to be playing in Bob’s “Echoes of Heaven” D&D 4.0 playtest campaign. She finished her algebra before we even really got started, but found other things there to interest her, including Katsy’s chain-mail-making. She also listened in on the game and enjoyed it. Bob told me later that if Kiki ever wants to come back she’s welcome to. She’s a lot more mature than at least one of the other regular players.

We got home by about 10:30 pm, tired, but not tired of each others’ company. I’m calling a ten-hour Daddy-daughter date that ends in that frame of mind an unmitigated success.

Even if I did send the wrong message about ditching school.

Tuesday I had an injection to treat a case of “Morton’s Neuroma.” The podiatrist took care to explain that while “neuroma” sounds like cancerous words (“melanoma” leaps to mind) the “oma” part just means “diseased,” in a lumpy sort of way.

My family doctor said much the same thing when he explained that the weird little lump in my left forearm was a lipoma. Today he removed it (just in case, for biopsy) and I’m pleased to announce that it was a much more pleasant experience than having a nerve in my foot shot up with cortizone. This is probably due in no small part to the fact that I don’t walk around on my forearms. Also, there are fewer nerves there.

Still, the procedure was disconcerting. After four injections of local anaesthetic Doctor Harline cut my arm open with a scalpel, scissored the hole a little wider with a wicked-looking set of scissors, and then started kneading, like he was trying to pop the largest zit I’ve ever had. I asked him if he wasn’t supposed to call 1-800-BLUE-STAKES before digging around that way (he laughed quite genuinely — I am a professional, after all), but after a moment he DID pop the largest zit I’ve ever had.

The picture (safely sanitized in a specimen cup) is behind the cut.
Continue reading “OMA” week… “Oh My Achin’…” →

My foot is feeling better.

Which is to say “I now HAVE to walk with a limp, but I’m not feeling faint every time I try to stand up.”

Of course there’s still a mucking great bruise where the shot of cortizone went in. I’m assuming that once that goes down I’ll be able to judge whether the cortizone did any good.

Yesterday I knocked down a week of inking, four days of coloring, AND managed to get in a game of Warmachine. My Trollbloods turned a very aggressive Protectorate attack into a slaughter. Close game, very close game… right up until the point that the uber-boosted-from-carnage Seneschal failed to assassinate Grissel the Singing Troll.

I’m not talking about “painting myself into a corner,” or some other metaphorical shooting-of-foot. I’m talking about letting the podiatrist stick a needle full of cortizone and novacaine into a medial plantar nerve in my left foot in what now feels exactly like the vain hope that it will make things better.

So I guess that while there was a literal shot in my literal foot, I didn’t literally do it myself. But two out of three ain’t bad.

Three months ago I banged up my left foot hiking. Six weeks ago I realized it still hurt, and wasn’t getting better. So I did what any sane, type-A guy would do: I rubbed some dirt in it and decided to favor that leg until it got better. (Note: I did not literally rub dirt in it. That is hyperbole.)

Six weeks later I realized it was getting worse, if it was in fact getting anything, and I was tired of looking like a grumpy old man limping around town (literally. No hyperbole there.) So I went to the podiatrist, and that brings us to the shot (I’m skipping the X-ray, palpitation, and diagnosis, cutting directly to the metaphorical chase.)

The nerve is towards the very bottom of the foot. The shot goes in from the top, because needles don’t like calluses, and doctors don’t like patients (hyperbole? You call it.) The last thing you want to hear when you’re gritting your teeth over an injection is “almost there… almost there…” Yeah. My thinking went along the lines of “as long as this doesn’t get any worse I’ll be just fiiiEEEAAAACKING HELL THAT HURTS” (maaaaybe there’s some hyperbole there.) And then the needle came out, the bandage went on, and within thirty seconds I actually felt GREAT.

It was wonderful. For the next four hours I walked around as if nothing had ever been wrong. It did feel like two of my toes were missing, but at least they didn’t HURT.

(For those of you keeping score at home, yes, four hours is about how long it takes for novacaine to wear off.)

For the past three hours I’ve been limping like an eighty-year-old with a shiny, new titanium hip replacement, and I’ve been doing the “thousand-yard-stare” common to those who are not feeling much pain anymore because of the flood of endorphins. Except that I am still feeling the pain.

Obviously this case of “Morton’s Neuroma,” and when I find Morton I’m going to kick him in the teeth.

With my RIGHT foot. In a boot.

Literally.