The Third Thing

With my major fear assuaged, I headed toward the end of the first trimester feeling pretty good.  The nausea was letting up and my body seemed to stop fluctuating so much from day to day.  In fact, there was a dinner a few weeks ago, where I sat across from my husband at the table, eating food that smelled and tasted good, when I stood up and declared, "I feel...AWESOME!"  It was the most I had felt like myself in at least two months.  It was great.

As I progressed over the next few weeks, I was rewarded with a special surprise.  My ultra-sound revealed that Hummingbird was actually a week ahead of schedule!  Suddenly, I was even closer to end of the first trimester and got a new due date of August 29th.

The feeling of tiredness and aching feet/legs seemed to be the two most steady reminders that I am pregnant.  It is hard to tell if it is being pregnant or the fact that my students are thawing out into little crazy monsters that makes me so tired.

Last year I had recieved a melanoma diagnosis that scared my family and I, but surgery removed all the dangerous cells and there have been no signs of it coming back.  However, I am still on a regimine of quarterly dermotology visits.  In these visits, a very nice doctor looks in all my nooks and crannies for erroneous cells and then works his way down to my incision site (just above my right knee).  There he presses into the scar and checks the surrounding tissue.  All good there, so I sigh with relief and stop paying attention as he works his way down my pale legs to my feet, when suddenly I hear, "Hey look at that!"  Never a good thing.  "What?", I ask.

"Looks like you got a corn, there!"

Corn?  CORN!?  Who gets corns under the age of 50?  Apparently, I do!  My swollen, tired feet decided to rebel against me and start forming vegetable named ouchies on my peds.  For those who haven't had the pleasure of a doctor comedically pointing out that you have one, let me fill you in:

Corn: (pronounced KERN) a mega callous that forms on a bone. Usually one that protrudes above the other foot bones, so it is already noticeable, but then takes on a shiny, red look.

I walked out of the office, replaying the scene in my head.  Then I smiled, because I suddenly remembered how to handle this situation.  The first person to ask about my premature foot ailment will be greeted with Liz Lemon grace.