Heya, I hope you are all doing well.

This comic came out of an exercise during the New England Graphic Medicine Conference. We were challenged to create a comic about a minor injury. I did it as a super rough sketch and just re-did it as something more polished in a style I’ve never used before. As a hypermobile person with ADHD I have so many injury stories, but this one called to me. It speaks so much to the shames and internal narratives we poison ourselves with... especially if we have good reason to minimize the pains of day to day (for how else do you get on with things?).

The x-ray featured in the comic is from when I stubbed my big toe in a way that re-tore tendons from an injury 10 years earlier.  10 years ago, in a moment of hypermobility I’d accidentally trod on my big toe, folding it completely under it’s own foot and then standing on it. Not something I recommend, and something I should have got physical therapy for at the time, but we were new to America and not having health insurance was terrifying. 

The re-injury hurt enough and the bruising was spectacular enough (even more on the underside of my foot) that I went to the doctor and got x-rays. Not getting physical therapy 10 years ago means I have nerve damage, but I got PT this time round and as long as I practice moving my toe its slowly gets better. 

Transcript:

Stubbed Toe Loser.

Close up of foot walking along innocently doing foot things.

Toe smashing into a sharp corner (FYI it was the corner of a bed with a super sharp corner from Ikea)

Liz collapsed on the ground holding her foot.

I‘m so pathetic

sobbing helplessly over a stubbed toe

I’m supposed to be a big tough roller derby girl

liar

pathetic

feeble

I cry and cry

toe red and swollen for weeks.

Years later.

Image of an x-ray, one of the toe bones has a notch at the top instead of a smooth nob.

I’m getting an x-ray for my big toe.

I wonder how long did a bone chip float around to have such a tidy notch.

Close up of the toe bone with a notch in the tip.

Sometimes it’s healing, just knowing what pieces are missing.