a bedtime story

I'm lying on my stomach at the dermatologist's office, as the physician's assistant "pares" down the plantar's wart on my foot.  I've had this wart since last summer, and his name is Fred, after my cousin's husband, who is a very successful tax lawyer.  "He's my friend," I tell her, "but I'll be happy to see him go."

"I'm just going to numb it, then inject it," she says.  She is injecting poison directly into the wart, which they also did last month.  This is one tenacious wart.  It turned black, seemed dead, then slowly resurrected itself, laughing at my flip-flop sole.

Rewind to last summer.  On an amazing trip to Dana Point and Laguna Beach, I walked into the ocean.  I walked out.  Later one night, I noticed this wart for the first time on my foot.  Does the ocean give warts, I wondered?  I find out later, no, but you can cut your foot on a shell and the virus can enter in, unsuspectingly.  Stealth-like.

I wasn't scared of this wart.  Blonde FunkNation warned, "Go get it taken care of."  His wart story is his own, but let me just reveal that his treatment involved poison, duct tape and screaming in the night.

"Oh, no - I'll just get some over-the-counter stuff."  We pick some up at a drug store on the beach.  I'm very confident this wart will be gone in no time.

Over the next few weeks, my wart ate this medicine like plant food, like something out of a Dr. Seuss story.  It flourished with each acidic treatment, growing a big callous around itself.

I went to my family doctor.  "These warts can last for 6 months, a year," he says.  He gives it several freeze treatments over the next few months.  Fred is not phased in the least.

I make my first dermatologist appointment after having the wart 8 months.  "I told you to get it treated," says Blonde FunkNation.

This doctor I like.  He looks like Mister Rogers with a comb-over.  He gives me a short history of the different kinds of warts and their tenacity to survive.  He freezes the wart, cuts away a lot of skin and injects it with poison he says is similar to a chemotherapy treatment.  It hurts like a lawyer.

Several weeks later, I think Fred is dead.  I go to get a pedicure at my favorite nail shop in Kyle. I have gotten to be friends with the owner, kind of.  I can never understand what he's saying to me.   During my pedicure, he comes out of the back and tells the lady doing my nails he'll take over. At least that's what I think he's saying as he nudges her out of her spot.  I show him the bottom of my foot.  "Do not touch this at all," I say.  He laughs.  He grabs a giant scrub brush and looks at me quizzically.  "Yes?" he says.  "NO," I say.  "Do not!"  He laughs.  But I can tell he really wants to try to scrub this wart off my foot.  He is sadistic like that.

There is a little golden buddha at the front of the shop with a Little Debbie snack offered up in front of it.  I am one visit away from asking the owner, "does your buddha like the nutty bar? really? the nutty bar? seriously!"  I have eyed these snacks more than once on my way out, and have wondered what kind of trouble I would get in if I grabbed the buddha's snack and ate it.  

Tonight though, I am hopeful for 100 percent healing.  The dermatologist remarked today that the wart had gotten smaller.  In August we will go to Los Cabos for our 20th anniversary, and I'm hoping Fred will not be there.  I'm not buying him a ticket.  And the ocean will be my friend, I'm believing...