The toes knows

Paul Kandarian

Okay, this is scary. Granted, the whole pandemic thing has got us scared of not just our own shadows but virtually everyone else’s

if said shadows aren’t wearing a mask and aren’t a minimum of six feet away. But this thing happening to me is scary. Or it might not be. Too soon to tell.

I noticed a dark hard spot on my little toe, underneath near the tip which I would only notice if cutting my toenails, which I tend not to do enough, thus rendering my feet nasty and gnarled and cracked and not at all unlike a hobbit foot. Just ugly. Honestly, that guy you see on the beach with feet so gross they scare kids? Yeah. I’m that guy.

So I saw this thing in early spring, just before Pandemic Fever gripped us like Pennant Fever or Super Bowl Fever or whatever other sports-related fever we seasonally suffer in good years. Thought it was a blood blister, gave it no more thought until months later when I was thinking about cutting my hobbit nails and saw it again.

Nothing changed. Same purple dark ugly hard spot. Had an annual physical coming up, so I figured I’d show my doc. The guy’s got a good sense of humor. Case in point: during the exam, as he’s readying for the prostate probe, I joke, “Great, the least favorite part of the exam for both of us,” to which he retorts, “What are you complaining about, I gotta go to lunch right after this.”

I like the guy because he’s laid back and marvels at my good health, with my normal everything like blood pressure, cholesterol, only one prescription, and weight (not counting the COVID-10 that crept on because of COVID-19) but this spot on my toe made him go, “Hmmm…you should have that looked at.”

So I am, as of this writing, doing so soon, getting a biopsy with a derm doc at Mass General in Boston because when it comes to cancer scares (this case being possible melanoma), I ain’t screwing around with the locals when world’s best is right up the road largely free from traffic, that being the one and maybe only good thing about the lockdown.

Naturally, I started poking around the Internet and such because it’s the absolute pinnacle of verifiable medical information,

Naturally, I started poking around the Internet and such because it’s the absolute pinnacle of verifiable medical information, right?

right? Right. So I find this thing called “Covid Toe,” which is dark purple or black spots on the tips of toes and so now I’m in a full-out panic until I see it affects mostly kids and young adults which made me immediately feel bad for kids and young adults while secretly going “whew,” until I remembered it said “mostly” kids and young adults. Not “always” kids and young adults. No, a waffling, quavering, uncertain “mostly.”

See how crazy this is making me? I’m not one to panic, but I’m also not one to hear “melanoma” that often, despite my lifelong worship of the sun and proclivity for a deep dark tan in summer that seems to last yearround. And okay, my disdain for sunscreen. Yes, yes, I know, I know, shut up already.

Then I started reading about all the signs of COVID-19. Which change from day to day. Some symptoms go, more come on, until you’re sitting at home in quarantine scratching your head until your scalp bleeds. Fever, dry cough, wet cough, runny nose, aches and pains, sore throat, no sore throat, new loss of taste or smell (as opposed to the old one you usually get?), trouble breathing… basically, the symptoms of COVID-19 are identical to every side effect on every impossible-to-read pamphlet of every drug ever made in the history of mankind.

So I had some of the symptoms. Or none of them. I can’t be sure. It’s all just nuts. Like not knowing what day it is. That’s a thing, a side effect of lockdown. Near as I can tell, the days are now Thisday, Thatday, Otherday, Someday, Huhday, Noday and WTF DAY IS IT!

Plus there’s this: since I noticed this toe thing a few months ago, I’ve had a persistent aching back, low, across the spine and side to side. My doc said it’s probably from putting on a few pounds. Did I mention I like the guy? That assessment may change if he keeps saying stuff like that.

But it’s an ache and pain that didn’t exist pre-COVID, so that’s yet another thing that is turning my formerly non-paranoid self into a guy looking for the fatal boogeyman in every unexpected twitch, itch, and hitch.

So if you’re reading this now, I may be fine. Or not. I may be dead. Or I may be alive. And if the latter, I’m hoping to be back in the sun, less the COVID-10 I got from COVID-19 lockdown, possibly with feet slathered in SPF 2,000 sunscreen beneath which I’ll be boasting a fresh pedicure.

As the toe goes so go I. Stay tuned. And cut your nails more than I do. Don’t be that guy.

PaulKandarian is a lifelong area resident and, since 1982, has been a profession writer, columnist, and contributor in national magazines, websites, and other publications.

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