Itchy Toe-itis

Yesterday it was if the stars had aligned to create the perfect opportunity for me to deep clean my painfully stained carpets. I was motivated to work on the carpets, partly because they were filthy but my main motivation was calorie expenditure. It is amazing how motivating house work can be when I view it as an extra work-out instead of a chore.

I also wanted to keep busy as a distraction technique. My little toe, which is no longer there, was so itchy that it bordered on painful. I tried all of my normal phantom sensation elimination techniques to no avail. I knew that keeping busy was my only option.

I have no idea why my absent little digit was so itchy yesterday. In the seven years that I have been an amputee I have never had a phantom experience for this duration. I woke up early with the itching and it only intensified throughout the day. Although annoying, I am grateful that it was itching and not pain!

Despite my efforts, pushing the carpet cleaner did not miraculously "scratch" the phantom itch. My cleaning project did keep me busy, which helped me deal with the annoyance. As a bonus, my bedroom carpets are clean!

Robby, who typically slows me down by his constant "helping," was occupied all day. I knew that he was going to be content all day and would rarely seek me out. A&E was showing a marathon of "Billy the Exterminator" which is his new favorite show. He can, and yesterday did, sit and watch it for hours without moving.

I realize that allowing Robby watch television for several hours so that I could clean my carpets will not nominate me for Mother of the Year. I swore that I should never let the television be my babysitter. I also promised myself that my child would never eat ice cream for breakfast and would never use a pacifier. Broken promises have become par for the course when it comes to my motherhood experience.

My toe itching faded as the evening progressed, and I am hopeful that it will be gone by morning. I still don't know why the itching occurred and that bothers me to some degree. I suppose I need to accept that sometimes weird things and feelings occur within the residual limb. In any case, thanks to the Billy the Exterminator marathon and my phantom sensations, I have clean carpets.