Feet and Phantom Phat

Hey guys!  It’s nice to see ya!  I”m not talking to my readers this time.  I’m talking to my feet!  I can't remember the last time I saw the bottoms of my feet. Two weeks ago, I was in the bathtub and, naturally as can be, I grabbed my leg, bent it to the side and washed my feet.  Oh, is this something you do every day?  Well, not me.  I can’t remember the last time I looked at my foot to wash it.  I relied on my trusty sponge, scrubby, or loofa glove to do the job.  Poor toes.  They never got any attention!  

Before this point in my transformation, there were many body parts I could not reach.  If my back itched, I slammed myself against the doorwall and shimmied up and down like Baloo the Bear in the movie The Jungle Book.  If my shoulder blade itched, I moved my bra strap around in hopes to scratch the spot.  There were “other” parts of my body that I had never reached until recently.  Now, I’m like, “Well, hello there!”  

Something else about my body that I am noticing lately is that I have phantom fat.  What?!  You’ve never heard of phantom fat?  You’ve heard of phantom leg, right?  The phenomenon that happens when, even though a part of a body is no longer present, the person can feel sensations in those parts.  I see phantom phat in two different ways.  One is that I had aches and pains in my joints the first few months after surgery.  I was limping a bit and my back was hurting for no reason.  I went to the doctor and, jokingly, said, “I guess my body was used to all that weight bearing activity that now it doesn’t know how to act!”  She said, “Actually, that is not far from the truth.  Your body is used to adjusting and feeling these pains, so it is doing what it always has done.”  What?!  I had a talk with my body and said, “Look here girl!  You are not carrying the same load and you don’t have to move as though you are.”  

The second phantom shows up when I have an itch somewhere, like my belly or my butt cheek.  When I go to scratch it, my hand lands on air instead of on my body.  You get what I’m sayin?  I go to scratch myself and I am inches away from where my body currently begins.  I realize that I have to move my hand closer to myself to accomplish my goal.  I had no idea that this was a thing.  But it is.