Bunions

Something funny happened during Chinese New Year. An aunt of mine was showing around her feet. It looked kinda weird, there was a big lump at the base of her large toe, and her large toe was curled towards the other toes. It looked kinda ugly. She said she was going for an operation. She said it was bunions.

That condition of the foot looked familiar, and suddenly I realised that I had a mild version of what she had. I can’t remember how exactly it was but the other 5 or 6 aunts and uncles in my room at that point in time found it extremely funny that I had belatedly realized what was wrong with my feet.

Suddenly a lot of things became clear, like how, around 3 months before my marathon, I couldn’t run more than 15km without getting a sharp pain in that joint. How, if I ran in a way that did not aggravate my bunions, I risked some other part of my leg. And why I retired. (One of the important reasons was my propensity to get injured – now I know why.)

Anyway, my grandmother was there, and she couldn’t understand much of the conversation which was taking place in English. She asked what the hell was going on. I said there was something wrong with my leg. Then she took my leg and felt it, and touched my big toe, and declared, “now, there’s a lump that should be cut off.” The other ppl were laughing their heads off by now.

My father popped in, and looked at the foot, and said, “Well you look at that, it’s not what a normal foot should look like. It’s so obvious.” I sneered, “yeh? You only telling me about that now after more than a year?”

The aunt who had bunions told me, “if you don’t really like your company, you can go for an operation, they’ll give you 4 weeks of MC.”