I never paid much attention to my feet.
They carried me through long workdays, shuttling kids to school, weekend getaways… and I barely gave them a thought.
Until the morning everything changed.
I was rushing out the door and already running late when I slipped on my favorite shoes… and froze.
A sharp pain shot through my big toe joint.
I immediately kicked off my shoe, annoyed, thinking maybe I’d stepped wrong the day before.
But as I pressed my thumb into the side of my foot, I felt it.
A hard lump.
A lump that hadn’t been there a few months before.
At first I convinced myself it was nothing. Maybe a callus. Maybe some temporary swelling. I hoped it would just go away on its own if I ignored it.
I was wrong.