For the first time in six months … the shoes match.

Last Friday, I visited my podiatrist for a regular checkup. He was involved in the team that saved my life – between podiatry, vascular and all the other medical professionals last February, they fought back a diabetic abscess and bloodflow issue in my left foot that nearly cost me my life.

But on the road to recovery, although I could return to my regular routine, I was forced to travel with a medical wrap-around appliance on my foot, so that the repaired wound wouldn’t develop a pressure sore or a re-opening or anything worse.

I wore that appliance throughout my recovery. That included wearing it throughout my entire stint at the Albany Patroons’ scorers table; wearing it during my trip to Vermont for the solar eclipse; wearing it anywhere and everywhere. I wore it through every bandage change and application of collagen fabric and skin graft and ointment and tincture and this and that. I dealt with the issue. I had to. The options weren’t really palatable.

Last Friday, my podiatrist said the magic words that I thought would evade me completely.

“You can wear regular shoes if you want to, starting today.”

Holy Big Baller Brand, Batman … I can wear matching shoes again.

That’s right people. This blog contains foot selfies.

Of course, it took a day or so for my body to re-adjust to the proper footwear. And even after surgery, I’m still going to need custom orthotics every four months for my shoes so that I don’t develop any other medical issues or foot-related problems.

And trust me, I’d rather show a pair of matching shoes on my feet today …

Than showing you my repaired foot with the missing pinky toe. I mean, I could save it for a Competition Season photo if I wanted to … if my plan was to completely gross out the judges and make visitors lose their collective lunches …

But for now, I’ll just keep walking on the road to normalcy.

And I’ll walk on that road in matching footwear. 😀