Bad Toe--the Rest of the Story

So, for all you Paul Harvey fans out there, here is the rest of the story.  Back on Memorial Day weekend, when Roger Thompson​ and Rick Reynolds​ were visiting, Rick noticed that my left foot was terribly swollen.  He suggested I see my doctor about it.  I scheduled a full physical with my doc, Clancy Cone​, but Clancy couldn't tell what, exactly, was going on with my foot, so he referred me to my podiatrist, Flynn Sherick.  Now me, being of a mind to put things off until I can afford to pay for them, neglected setting an appointment with Dr. Sherick.  That is until Thursday night, when getting ready for bed I noticed that the middle toe on my left foot was bright red and the skin was peeling off it.  Since Kevin​ wanted to drive into Missoula on Friday anyway, I called Dr. Sherick's office, and when I described the situation, April said it sounded like an emergency and got me in to see Dr. Reed that morning.

One of the side effects of diabetes is that you can develop neuropathy, especially in the extremities, and you may not feel what is happening with your feet.  I certainly have no idea why my toe got in the shape it did--I know it didn't look that bad when Clancy saw it or he would have done something.  But, long story short, there is an infection in my toe that led Dr. Reed to clean the wound, i.e. cut off the tip of the toe and the peeling skin.  He told me I had two options:  1) stay off my feet, keeping the left foot dry except for daily cleansing of the wound and redressing it, and take massive amounts of antibiotics for 6 to 8 weeks; or 2) amputate the toe.  I chose 1.  With proper care and any luck at all, the toe will heal, the lost skin will grow back, and I can return to a more or less normal life.  Well, the new normal, which includes a complete foot inspection every day. EVERY DAY.

Dr. Reed also took x-rays of my foot and found 1) the bones aren't exactly where they're supposed to be in a normal foot, and 2) there are lines that may or may not be hairline fractures in some of the bones.  The misalignment of the bones may just be a genetic variation, but in any event, Dr. Reed felt that the matter called for an MRI to get a clearer picture of what is going on with my left foot.  (Sounds like a movie title to me.)  (And just why should the bones in my feet be normal--the rest of me certainly isn't.)  After cleaning and disinfecting the wounded toe, Dr. Reed put me in a walking cast to protect everything, including the possibly broken bones in my foot.

Dr. Reed's staff was very helpful and worked to get me an MRI appointment that very day so I wouldn't be driving back and forth to Missoula every couple of days.  Bless them all!  I was out of Dr. Reed's office by noon, but the MRI wasn't scheduled until 4 pm.  After lunch at the Montana Club, we headed to Costco to get my new prescriptions filled (they would need at least a half hour and standing around with that walking cast just wasn't cutting it), so we left Costco and headed to WalMart for some quick shopping, then to the Verizon store, where even though I knew exactly what I wanted, it still took 2 1/2 hours to move from my old iPhone4 to a brand new LG G4.  (And just like at Costco, we ended up leaving the Verizon store without our new purchases, because it was going to take another hour and a half just to move the photos and contacts from the old phone to the new one--not an easy task if you're going from Apple to Android, apparently.

We got to Advanced Imaging, the MRI place, about 15 minutes early, and they got me in very quickly.  There was one fellow in the machine at the time, and a woman in line ahead of me, but they took me to the back, took a blood sample, and put a needle in the back of my hand so they could insert dye into my veins for the MRI.  And then the real wait began.  I had not had the foresight to bring a book or my Kindle from home, but I took advantage of our stop at Costco to pick up a new book, Paris Match by Stuart Woods as I knew there would be some waiting time.  The assistant at Advanced Imaging showed me how to turn my arm chair into a recliner, and brought me a heated blanket, which was helpful as the place was air conditioned to near arctic temperatures.  I was told that I'd be waiting for about 45 minutes and then would be in the MRI machine for another 45 minutes, so I asked to speak with Kevin, and when he joined me, I suggested he head back to Costco and the Verizon Store to pick up our purchases, rather than sit in the lobby and wait while I was also sitting around waiting.  He agreed, and left.

Let me just say that I am thoroughly enjoying the Stuart Woods novel.  I read half the book while waiting.  Yes, half the book.  It was a long wait.  And in the end, a fruitless wait as the assistant returned to tell me that they had been having trouble with the machine all day, and it had finally given up the ghost while working on the man two in line in front of me.  The could get me into the machine at St. Pat's hospital around 11 p.m., or, they would put Kevin and me up in a motel overnight so that we wouldn't have to drive back on Saturday morning--assuming, that is, that they were able to get the machine fixed Saturday morning.  Kevin insists that Clark Fork Valley Hospital, just down the road from our house, has a brand new MRI, but for some reason, no one in Missoula--not Dr. Reed nor the folks at Advanced Imaging--was willing to consign me to the ministrations of our local folk.  Something about protocols.  Doesn't make sense to me that St Pat's would be OK, but Clark Fork Valley, which is owned by St Pat's, isn't.  But what do I know.  I'm just the patient.

We left Advanced Imaging at 6 p.m. (Remember, we got there at 3:45), and headed to Bamboo Chopstix for a fine dinner with Mike Henry and his mother.  After that we headed home, arriving around 9 p.m., roughly 12 1/2 hours after we left for Missoula.  And I'd been in that damn walking cast since before noon.  I was tired, cranky, and very upset.

Kevin took the cast off, cleaned and redressed the wounded toe, and we went to bed.  The doctor had given me a prescription for Oxycodone for pain, but I know how morphine affects me and I really want to avoid the narcotic if at all possible.  Instead, I took three Advil gel caps and a dose of Nyquil and headed upstairs to sleep by myself in the guest room.  And I did sleep.

Woke up this morning feeling much more chipper than when I went to bed--or in fact better than at any time yesterday, and now I'm waiting for my brand new LG G4 to ring and tell me that the machine is working and I need to come back into Missoula.  If I do go into Missoula today, I will take advantage of being there to participate, at least minimally in Pride activities and also run by the Father's Day Car Show at Grizzly Peak Home.  BUT, and this is the kicker:

For the next 6-8 weeks I am to stay off my feet as much as possible, and wear that damned walking boot when I have to be up.  Not sure how I'll feel after driving into Missoula with the boot on, so I may not make any of the extracurricular activities.  Also, at home, I will have to give up watering the orchard, the flower beds and the strawberries--turning those tasks over to Kevin.  I am not to get my foot wet, and I can't water the orchard with a plastic bag over the walking cast--not to mention doing it while "staying off my feet."  I am to stay away from my loom--at least until we know if any bones are broken, because the project I'm working on uses all ten treadles and each treadle raises four harnesses--a lot of weight, which means a lot of pressure on an injured foot.  I foresee getting a lot of reading done over the next 6-8 weeks.

And worst of all, I have to wear shoes at all times.  My West Virginia roots go too deep for me to be comfortable wearing shoes.  Those of you who know me well, know that I don't wear any clothing if at all possible, but I almost never wear shoes unless I'm out in public.  The doc says that has to change.  We'll see.  For now, I'll be sitting in my recliner, with my feet up, relaxing with the Kindle or a book in front of me.

Oh, and two incidental things I need to remember to tell Dr. Reed when I see him in 10 days.  I spent many years doing Scottish Country Dance.  I'm a life member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, affiliated with the San Francisco Branch.  Scottish Dancing puts a lot of stress on your feet, and any hairline fractures could well have occurred back in the day.  Wouldn't surprise me at all.  Could even account for the bones not being in the "proper" place.  Also, last October, while in Phoenix, Kevin left me at the hotel while he went to make some last minute purchases before our drive home.  I took advantage of the internet to find a couple of geocaches within walking distance of the hotel, and the first one I tried for (and found, btw), involved climbing a rather steep, very rocky hillside.  I don't know what I did, focused on the goal, as it were, but when I got back down to street level and started walking back to the hotel on the sidewalk, my left foot screamed in agony and I seriously wondered if I'd be able to get back to our room.  The foot hurt off and on for days, but eventually the pain subsided.  I still have no idea what I did, but I suppose it's possible that I fractured a bone by stepping on a rock a little too heavily.  Who knows.

And that's the rest of the story.

In Pride

With Big Sky Pride coming up this month, it seems appropriate to me to repeat something I wrote eighteen years ago.  They say that stuff you put on the web is never completely lost, but just in case, I'm copying it here.  I wrote this for the November 1997 issue of Outspoken, which was Missoula's gay/lesbian newsletter and have edited it slightly to reflect the current situation.

Grandpa's Notes:

Many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea.... Oops, that's another story and another writer, but once upon a time doesn't quite fit either. Still, at a time before some of the people reading this were born, a group of men met every Tuesday evening in a private home under the name of Gay Males Together. When I came out in 1977, at the age of 27, it was because I read an ad in the Missoulian that suggested I call a phone number for information about that group and its activities. I don't know how long Gay Males Together had been meeting at that point. I remember moving to Missoula in 1975 and seeing the ads then, but too frightened of my own secrets, I spent two years gathering the courage to call that phone number. When at last I did call and learned the address of the meeting, I showed up at the door, full of fear and trembling at the possibilities that lay inside that apartment. What kind of monsters would I see when the door finally opened. Remember, this was before Ellen, before before Priscilla or To Wong Foo, before even Victor/Victoria and La Cage aux folles. Would I see sights that would push me even deeper into the closet than I already was?

You see, I had been having anonymous, public sex with men for 10 years at this point. From my first experience as a hitchhiker at 17, riding in a Firebird from Reno to Sacramento, through grad school at UC Berkeley where the athletic department graciously furnished a site for nude sun-bathing and gay sex (activities I willingly engaged in--and still do, should I add), I enjoyed the anonymous encounters with other men. I enjoyed watching other naked men playing with each other sexually, and I certainly enjoyed it when they played with me. BUT I WAS NOT GAY! I had a girlfriend--with whom I never exchanged anything more sexual than the occasional chaste kiss. I knew that as much fun as playing with men was, the right woman would come along and I would settle down into the American dream (or nightmare) of married life, home in the suburbs, two and a half kids, dog, station wagon, etc. etc. ad nauseam. So in 1969 when Louis Landerson, then a classmate in Senior level French courses and later a writer for Boston's Fag Rag, showed up one day in class wearing a button which read "Gay is Good!" I ran as fast as I could in the other direction. I don't think I ever spoke to Louis after that day, and today that is one of my great regrets. A few years later, in 1973, I was studying in one of Berkeley's many parks when I noticed a celebration taking place at a distance. While I watched, amazed, the celebrants moved toward me, led by two six foot tall white rabbits. When they were close enough for my near-sightedness to focus, I saw that they were carrying banners reading "Gay Pride!" and the white rabbits were men in rabbit costumes who had their genitals exposed for all to see. Again, instead of joining the celebration, or taking those "family jewels" in my hand--which I would do today--I closed my book (with its accusatory lavender binding) and left the park. Whatever those people were celebrating, it had nothing to do with me.

So four years later I found myself standing in front of a closed door in the lower Rattlesnake, waiting for the door to open and for those damned white rabbits to accost me. What I found instead was a group of men, mostly in their 20s and early 30s, who were no different than I. Of course, you knew that, didn't you. This group of men became my family. While I wouldn't use the word "sisters" to describe them, I would happily dance to Sister Sledge singing "We Are Family," a song which became the de-facto gay anthem in the early 80s. It was with this group of men that I helped rent and decorate the basement of the Palace--where the billiard parlor now sits--for the first gay dance held to anyone's recollection in Missoula. Should I mention that the name we put on the rental agreement was The River City Rafting and Cruise Association?

Sadly, our Tuesday evening host was facing increasing scrutiny into his private life, and his job was being threatened (he was an elementary school teacher), so we had to find a new place for our meetings. They were much too important to us to give up. Fortunately, one of our group was able to offer his home and the meetings went on. At the same time, I took on the task of answering the phone number that was advertised in the paper, the gay male hot-line! That phone rang in my home for almost five years in the late 70s and early 80s. Roughly one-third of the calls were legitimate calls for information about gay people and our activities. One-third were calls seeking sex, and one third were crank calls. A pretty good average considering the times. The routine was this: if someone called to ask about the Gay Males Together meetings, I would agree to meet them at the 4-Bs or some other public space, always asking them to identify themselves, and never giving any way for them to identify me. That way I could check them out safely, and meet with them in a public setting without jeopardizing either myself or the group. One day in 1979, a fellow called on Tuesday afternoon and gave his name. This was unusual, but even more unusual was that I recognized the name. He had been a student of mine when I was a substitute at Stevensville High School in 1975. Rather than stick to the routine, I figured I could trust him and gave him the address of the meeting. That evening, early on with only four of us present, the doorbell rang and we opened it to find six young men wanting to beat us up. We refused to fight with them (after all they were six to our four), so their ringleader--the fellow who had called--opened the screen door and punched our host. We called the police who, remarkably, did show up to take our statement, then we took Rob to the Student Health Service where he was admitted with a concussion. Sometime, if you're interested, ask me about the way the police and the city attorney's office handled the whole matter. The next week, while we waited anxiously for a repeat of the trouble, a group of women showed up at Gay Males Together armed with baseball bats, chains, knives, etc. to protect their boys.

I have always felt responsible for Rob's injury, but that attack was the catalyst which brought about Out in Montana. When the women and the men started talking about our mutual concerns and needs, we started meeting in earnest with the intent of building a state-wide gay rights organization that would also provide social outlets for gay men and lesbians across Montana. Remember that at this time there were no gay bars anywhere in Montana, and only a couple in Spokane. For the next year gay men and women from across western Montana met regularly and wrote By-Laws, Articles of Incorporation and a mission statement for Out In Montana. By design the organizational duties were to be equally shared by women and men. This was a concept almost unknown in those days. A group of five of us, three men and two women, travelled to Los Angeles for a meeting of grass-roots gay/lesbian organizations and there we found men's groups and women's groups, but no other groups that incorporated both men and women on an equal footing. I'll never forget OIM officer Ellen Sue Findley standing on a chair in comedienne Robin Tyler's West Hollywood apartment shouting "Gender parity means two men, two women, no more no less." She was responding to an organizational statement that groups attending this L.A. meeting were to have gender parity, which was defined as being at least two women out of a group of four. Under the rules of the meeting, all four could be female and the group would still be considered to have achieved "gender parity." Out In Montana was in the vanguard of men and women working together.

At the height of our organizational activity, Out In Montana had chapters in Missoula, Butte, Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls and Kalispell, held four board meetings each year at locations all across the state (well, actually, never east of Billings), published a newsletter for a mailing list of over 1,000, and had two main fund-raising events each year--Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends with attendance figures usually in excess of 400.

I could speculate on what went wrong and why Out In Montana didn't survive the 80s, but under the circumstances I believe such speculation to be pointless. We made mistakes in our enthusiasm and zeal, and frankly, times are quite different today than they were thirty-six years ago when OIM was founded, or even twenty-some years ago when it died.

One word that I would leave with you is participation. It's always easy to sit back and criticize what our organizations are doing. They never do what I want, right? But what takes real courage is standing up and working to change the things we don't like. Join in and make these organizations truly yours. Speak up and don't be afraid to let your voice be heard. You may not always get what you want, but at least you'll be in there trying and hearing the reasons others give for not supporting your ideas. Or maybe, wonder of wonders, they will support your ideas.

Montana's 2015 Gay Pride event will be held in Missoula this month. Get out now and help with the planning, organizing and work--and believe me there will be a lot of work that needs to be done. Make it an event that you, I, Missoula and all of Montana can truly hold as our own. Make it an event filled with pride!

Your grandpa,
Bryan D. Spellman