Many years ago, my right foot erupted into warts. 20 or 30 of them. My doctor hadn't seen anything like it -- but he froze them with liquid nitrogen anyway. Unfortunately, five survived. They weren't too annoying, so I didn't pay them that much attention. Eventually, the one on my toe started bothering me, so I went to another doctor to have them removed. He tried, for nearly a year, to kill them with various forms of medicine, acid, and liquid nitrogen, but they just wouldn't die. Persistent buggers. Anyway, they were pretty small at that point, so things didn't seem so bad.

Fast forward nine months and the one on the arch of my foot ballooned into a rather scary beast. I finally decided that it was a good time to start the treatments again, so I went to my new doctor's office for an opinion. He's this old British gentleman with a rather alarming frankness. In his words: "Oh, don't worry. I'll definitely get them. Here we slice 'em off or burn 'em." So I made an appointment for a minor operation. That was this Tuesday. "Okay, we're gonna numb them, shave them, and burn them." He injected the wart about eight times with anasthetic. (I only felt the first five... but boy did I feel them... he responded to my sharp breaths with "Oh, yeah, that burns like hell.") I didn't feel the "shaving" part, although I found out later that he shaved a whole ton of flesh off, keeping a chunk about the size of two kernels of corn for biopsy. (They had to show me afterwards, of course.) Then I heard the crackling sound of electricity, and a vague warmth through the anasthetic. During: "I'm really burning this suckers. I'm getting them good." After: "I shaved them down to their heart and lungs and burned the hell out of them!" Have you ever smelled your own burning flesh? It's not pleasant.

I got bandaged up, was given some high-strength painkillers and sent away. Luckily, my foot was still numb enough that I could drive. I needed blood work as well, so I had three tubes drawn before I came into work.

It's hard to walk when an area the size of a silver dollar in the arch of your foot is black and white and wrinkly and bloody. With a gouge of flesh taken out. It's also hard to tell that you're bleeding when you're under anasthetic. After lunch with the company I took my shoe off, only to find a blood-soaked sock... Thankfully, I work with a doctor (not licensed in California, alas), who bandaged me back up. I was doing fine for a little bit, until I had to get up and tell some people on the other end of our office something. On the way back, I noticed bloody footsteps in the carpet down the hall... oops. I'm sure there's a health code violation there somewhere.

I basically stopped bleeding until I had to go deliver some board materials to a house in Atherton. Not sure why I volunteered, as by the time I had finished, my bandages were soaked through again. I knew I had shed sweat for the company, but this was the first time I'd shed blood. I guess tears are next?

When I got home, I made sure to take a video. Then I made sure to gross everyone out with it. :)

And... now I have a trash can full of bloody bandages. After all the problems I've had, I've decided someday my feet will be the villain in a horror movie.

Ew.