Feet
I have developed something of a reputation for having extraordinarily smelly feet within my family. I would like to clear the air at least on this website, so I'm not branded like a leper for the rest of my life.

When I was about 11, I developed a growing condition called Osgood Schlatters disease. This was a condition whereby the tendons in my knees wouldn't grow fast enough for the bone, so they were permeanantly stretched. This meant agony if I tried to run, and if I was sitting down in a cramped space - for example, the back of a car, it would be unbearable, as I was and am over 6ft tall. Incidentally, this was cured by putting one leg at a time into a full leg cast, and being in a wheelchair for 6 months. But I digress, this isn't the story.

At the same time as this, I developed hideous ingrown toenails on each big toe. I mean really bad, bad enough that 2 years after having them sorted out at 16 years old, I still flinch if someone steps on my toe. If I stubbed my toe on a door or something, I would be in unimaginable pain.

Now the other problem with these toes was the smell. They were extremely infected, and the doctors kept prescribing antibiotics instead of surgery, because they couldn't operate with the toes so infected. One problem - the antibiotics didn't bloody work! I found one thing which actually helped them - my dog.

Now dogs are particularly foul creatures, they don't have the ability to feel disgust, and ours was no exception. And after a long days' work, my toes would be aching like hell. So when I got home I would take my shoes and socks off, and put my feet on the coffee table, and Millie, our dog, would just go to town. She would lick my toes for as long as I would let her, and this was generally anything up to an hour. And it helped! But the problem was the smell. After a day of serving fish and chips (this was GCSE summer before AS levels) I didn't smell brilliant anyway, and the stench that eminated from my toes after this was pretty much unbearable.

But the worst was when we went to visit some relatives, about 150 miles away. This involved me and my 2 brothers squeezing into the back of a Volvo V40, my toes burning like always, and my knees in agony from my Osgood Schlatters. I put up with this for about an hour before I thought I was going to die, and took my shoes off to wedge my feet under the seat. The pain in my knees lessened and I thought everything would be OK. Until 15 seconds later people started crying. My Dad was gagging at the wheel, my brothers instantly started punching me, and everyone wound down the window. It was lovely. Well, after 2 minutes of release I was forced to put my shoes on again and spend the rest of the journey in pain. Nothing compared to their pain though.

The best thing was, after visiting these relatives we trooped back to the car, and got in. There was a wonderful lingering odour of foot and pus, which they savoured all the way home.

I've even uploaded a nice picture of my prehensile gibbon feet in the bandages after the operation to sort them out - I did have some with the bandages off, but was forced to delete them from the family computer.

i80.photobucket.com/albums/j184/Rookie07/Crash023.jpg

Notice the wonderfully orange colour of the pus seeping through a clear half inch of bandage. I consider it art.
( Rookie You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel, Thu 22 Mar 2007, 16:28, Reply)