[markeb01]

Well, I’m now starting on a completely new adventure in life. I have had diabetes for the last twenty years, and my family doctor hasn’t done much of anything to bring my quarterly numbers down. So a couple of months ago, I was out mowing our back yard on our riding mower. I was wearing my standard Birkenstock sandals. I hadn’t been shot, I hadn’t dropped an engine on my foot, but the left side of my left foot hurt so back I could barely stand up or walk.

So I went in the house to lay down for a while. When that didn’t help, we soaked my foot in an Epson salts bath. That did two things, it made my little toe look dead, and a 1” x 2” chunk of skin came off right behind the little toe.

So Sunday morning, we checked in to the ER, and within an hour a doc was removing my little toe. He pointed out how it was now black and dead. But what he was really alarmed about was the size of the hole in the left side of my foot, and how everything inside my foot was black and also looked like it was on the way to being dead as well. So after more discussion and additional opinions and tests, my left foot was removed half way up to my left knee.

And the truth is, I’m not really all that upset about it. I spent my youth in the Marine Corps, so I have seen a lot of bad things happen, and also watched how individuals walked away from their problems. Since the surgery I have lost 20-30 pounds, and my diabetes numbers have dropped down to between 67-135. So now I’m riding it out, waiting until I can get a prosthetic leg/foot.

The bummer of all this, is I’m afraid I won’t be able to drive a stick shift anymore. So I’m already making plans to replace the SuperT10 with another Turbo 350 once I’m healed up enough. I also won’t be able to do any of this work until I’m into my final foot, which could be up to a year from now.

So I’ll be somewhat restricted from getting much done for a while, other than figuring out how to pay for the changes needed. The good news being I have a mechanic son, and a professional BMW mechanic in the family that have both volunteered to help, so that will be a big help when the time arrives for the change over.

That’s about it for now. Just wanted everybody to know why I’ve been offline for a while. Good luck to everyone.