Surprise: Arthritis has Extras

Im really struggling tonight as we have a massive storm rolling through. It brought 80 mph winds, hail, flooding, and probably decimated all my new plants, which i have yet to write about, but there were a lot of new plants. After the hail we will see what is alive tomorrow morning, if i can walk to check. I was mentally dealing with the fact that i couldn’t protect the plants from the prolonged hail storm while also trying to manage an inconsolable aussie with ptsd through a ton of ground lightening, deal with and fix internet outages, and edit my book. Recently i’ve been plagued by what seems like the beginning stages of bunions. However, tonight my right foot has a stage 2 bunion that is getting rapidly worse. The storm was aggravating my arthritis in a tear invoking way and no amount of over the counter pain meds or numbing creams would put a dent in it. At one point i looked down and realized my toe was jutting out sideways in a rather dramatic fashion that it wasn’t earlier today and i felt so defeated. All the tape and cotton balls and different shoes hadn’t done anything to help mitigate this problem. It was now so undeniable i couldn’t even get my tennis shoe on if my life depended on it. I knew i would need to brisk walk 8 miles for my job on thursday. It being midnight on tuesday, there was no way i could even express ship a bunion correction brace before thursday’s shift. The thought of calling in sick had crossed my mind but i couldn’t do it. It would be lying. I’d rather just show up and tell them i am crippled and beg to do something stationary for the day (not my job at all….no stationary parts exist). Im unsure what to do. This is clearly getting worse without me walking 8 miles. I have arthritis and an excessive amount of walking in my weekly routine. Check and check. Apparently thats all you need to make life changing incredibly painful bunions which is essentially an alarmingly gross dislocated toe. It grosses me out to see it pointing diagonal rather than forwards but the heebie jeebies factor is not the problem. This is so painful. I’d rather be submerged in chiggers if i could trade situations. This is not the dilemma i thought i’d be having at 33. I knew i couldn’t wear my rings anymore. I knew my joints were swollen. I knew a pain free existence was over, but i thought i had more time, decades even, before bunions…before difficulty walking. If i’m not calling in sick Thursday’s shift will have to be done without the bunion correction splint. I’m worried about how much worse im going to make this. I think i’m all cried out tonight. Nothing to do now but pray about Thursday and hope for sleep (hard to do when it feels like your foot is being torn asunder at the toe joint).