Not for the weak-stomached, part two.

So I drive myself to the Health Center for my appointment with Dr. Morley and am shown to a room. This room didn't have the kind of bed most doctor's exam rooms have. This bed looked more like a dentist's chair--contoured and slopey. I think I took my shoe off while I waited.

Dr. Morley walked in and said "What can I do for you today?"

"I have this plantar wart on my heel. I've tried lots of things to get rid of it, but nothing works."

He took a look at it. "Yeah, these plantar warts are stubborn. Even after you get rid of them, they often come back. Best thing to do is just cut them out."

"Ok."

"Would you like me to do that?"

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"I guess so. Will I be able to drive myself home?"

"You drive an automatic?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll be fine."

"Ok, let's do it.

First, he asked me to turn over and lie on my stomach so he'd have better access to the bottom of my foot. Next, he adjusted the dentist's chair contraption and got his supplies ready. Then, he shot my foot with some numbing medication (I don't remember this hurting, but I suppose it might have). Perhaps he had to wait a bit for the numbing agent to take affect, but then, in what seemed like no time at all, he was cutting at my heel. I couldn't see what he was doing since I was not facing him, but I did try to look a couple of times. I remember craning my neck to sneak a look, seeing spots of my own blood on his instrument tray, and quickly looking away again.

It's a strange sensation to be awake while someone is cutting into a part of your body. (I'm sure wart removal surgery is nothing to a c-section, but it's the closest I've ever been!) I could feel pressure on my foot and hear some cutting sounds at times, and as I said, I knew I was bleeding, but I never felt any pain. And in only a few minutes, he was applying bandages and telling me I could turn over.

"That's it? It's gone?" I asked.

Using some tweezers, he picked something up from his tray and showed it to me. It was a fleshy-colored object flecked with the red of my blood and about the size and shape of a partially shriveled grape. It was my wart. And it was now outside of my body.

I didn't ask him what he planned to do with it now.

Dr. Morley gave me instructions to keep the wound covered for about a week and gave me extra gauze pads and tape to do that, although I did have to go to the store and buy more before the week was up. He also gave me a prescription for a little tube of antibiotic ointment to apply to make sure that the wound didn't get infected. He told me to take some tylenol or ibuprofen when the numbness wore off, and he quite light-heartedly sent me on my way, with an appointment to see him in a couple weeks to check on it.

I remember limping out to the courtesy phone in the lobby and calling Jeremy. I told him what had happened and he was as surprised as I had been at how easy it had been to get rid of the thing with this doctor's help. Should have done this a long time ago, we agreed. I told him that I was feeling a little woozy, but that I was about to drive home.