The Honest Truth: Frostnip

*DISCLAIMER* 

This post is very dramatic.

It's official, I have been suffering from frostnip.

Frostnip is not what you might assume,

frosting of the nipples or nipple-frost,

rather, frostnip is simply the early stages of frostbite.

Most commonly seen on fingers, toes, noses, and ears, 

frostnip affects the surface of the skin and causes damage to the tissue due to extreme cold.

Let me tell you the whole story.

It all started about six months ago, in late October.

One night I noticed pain in my left big toe;

it had turned purple and was swollen.

I didn't think too much about it because Al and I 

were playing in a co-ed soccer league at the time.

I am not much of a soccer player, so I thought,

Oh, my toe is not used to kicking hard objects and, therefore must be bruising.

Soccer came and went

and my toe did not recover.

In fact, it got much worse.

Not only was the pain present, it was excruciating.

{I could tell you about the times I stubbed it or Alex stepped on it, 

but I can not bring myself to relive such painful memories.}

Not only was my toe purple, at times it looked dead {blackish}.

Not only was my toe swollen, it looked like a bubble was protruding from my flesh.

During December, I had had enough.

I went to my primary physician,

which if you know me, says I was concerned.

My doctor was baffled.

She noticed tissue damage on my toe {duh}

but assumed it was a result of soccer and running.

She went on to hypothesize that my shoes must be too small.

She sent me to Footworks, a specialty shoe store.

The people at Footworks were disgusted by my toe, and similarly baffled.

In fact, we discovered that my left foot is smaller than my right foot,

which was suffering no ill effects from my shoes.

This ruled out the Dr.'s theory,

however, I bought new {bigger} running shoes.

January came and training for the mini-Marathon began.

Toe got worse.

By February, my second toe on my left foot was now showing similar signs to my big toe

and my big toe now had an open sore near the nail.

Out of fear that my foot was going to fall off,

I stopped physical activity altogether.

At this point, the open sore did heal but the other symptoms remained

and worsened on the second toe.

I resumed training since it didn't seem to matter either way.

Family and friends have looked at my toe throughout the months 

and were growing increasingly concerned.

Some speculated an in-grown toenail,

others thought bruising from over-exertion.

No matter the speculation, all thought I should see a doctor {again}.

My Mimi ended up making my doc appointment 

which just so happened to be yesterday.

After seeing the foot specialist, I got the official diagnosis.

Frostnip.

He got a kick out of seeing my toes,

 even taking a picture of them with his cell phone.

He described my toes as mottled, and found scars of healed ulcers.

He explained that women of childbearing age, 

rarely do, but can have an overreaction to cold temperatures.

Turns out, my body is ready to have babies {I am not}

and is protecting my internal organs by refusing to let my left big toe and its neighbor 

have any blood when the temperature drops below 50*.

He assured me that as the temperature rises

my toes will return to normal.

So, the moral of this story is 

keep your toes warm.

In fact, I believe this was his exact prescription:

So, I followed the Dr.'s orders

and filled my prescription at Zappos.com!