Piercing Insights: My Encounter with a Rusty Nail and the 8 Lessons It Left Behind

Recently, I had an encounter with a rusty nail. It was about 5:30 am. I was walking from my front door to my car with sandals on, having just dropped my niece at the bus stop. I went into the house and then remembered that I had left my phone in the car. Back to the car I went. My right foot stepped on the nail. I hopped on one foot to the car and sat down. The rest is history. These are some lessons from the rusty nail.

1. Random things happen. I’ve walked from my front door to my car hundreds of times. How did this happen? Where did the nail even come from. There is no one hammering nails at my house. I have since learned that it was a roof nail. After the roof repair a few years ago, I guess the nail was in the ground. Probably dislodged when the grass was cut. Sometimes circumstances happen. There is no way to anticipate or plan for them.
2. Even smart people do dumb stuff. I consider myself very a pretty smart person. But the first thing I did when I sat in the car was to try and pull the nail out of my foot! This was really dumb. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe I was still a bit sleepy. Or maybe my inclination to fix things took over. I promise, it did not occur to me, in that moment, that pulling the nail out was not the right thing to do. When things happen, it’s best to take a minute or two, or several and pause – breathe, think-pray or pray-think, then act.
3. Having peopple in your life who care about you and are willing to challenge you is essential.   I called my daughter to come outside to the car. I said, “Help me pull out the nail . She immediately responded, “absolutely not! We have to go to urgent care Mommy.” She remembered enough from her first aid class that pulling the nail out was a no-no. Having people is necessary, it’s even better when that someone knows something about what you are going through. My daughter was not putting up with my nail removal foolishness.
4. Sometimes, you hurt before you get better. After getting the x-ray, the doctor looked at me and said, “you know I’m going to have to pull it out”. I don’t know how I thought it was coming out but I was a bit surprised by that pronouncement. She told me she could not numb my foot with the sandal nailed to my foot. So I was like, surely you are going to give me some pain meds before this happens. She gave me the pain meds. She pulled the nail out. It hurt. The the healing could begin.
5. You can’t tell how painful something is by how it looks. In a previous post I mentioned that I had a biopsy on my foot. My dermatologist needed to test a mole on the bottom my left foot. The wound was probably the size of a dime. But I was mobile, though limping in no time. I could barely see the puncture wound on my right foot from the nail. But let me tell you!!! That nail caused me more pain than that biopsy. I also had to get a tetanus shot. So my arm was hurting. And I was mad. Although the nail wound looked small, the impact was more severe.
6. What can help you can sometimes hurt as well. The sandal was thick enough to keep the nail from reaching the bone in my foot. But, was not strong enough to prevent the nail from entering my foot in the first place. Because the sandal was stuck on my foot, the Dr. could not numb my foot. In cases like this a decision has to be made. You have to weigh the benefits of keeping that thing around. I’ve decided that I won’t wear these sandals again.
7. Acknowledge your pain. One of my colleagues reached out to see how I was doing. I said I was doing okay. My foot was hurting. Then I said, “But, it could have been worse”. She responded, “could have been, but pain is pain.” She was right. Pain is pain. We often minimize what we are going through. Sometimes, we do it by habit. Other times, we don’t want to complain. Especially, if we consider ourselves strong. We are worthy of empathy and support. The same kind that we give to other people.
8. Take time to recover. If you know me, you know how important being physically active is to my physical and emotional health. This incident required that I retreat and regroup. I had to give my feet a rest. No walking for exercise, or golf, or swimming or tennis. Feet – you don’t realize how much you need them until they are hurting. So I have become more intentional about caring for my feet. I have a routine that includes hot/cold therapy, epsom salt soaks, compression socks, plantar fasciitis socks, a massager, etc. I am looking for anything that will help me keep my feet healthy. It was worth the down time.