I never paid much attention to my feet.
They carried me through long workdays, school runs, weekend trips — and I barely noticed them.
Until the morning everything changed.
I was rushing out the door, already late, when I slipped my foot into my favourite shoes… and froze.
A sharp, pinching pain shot through the middle of my toes.
I yanked the shoe off, annoyed — thinking maybe I’d stepped wrong the day before.
But when I pressed my thumb against my toes, I felt it.
One toe curled downward… stiff, tight, and painfully bent.
A hammer toe.
A deformity that definitely wasn’t there just months earlier.
At first, I convinced myself it was nothing — maybe it was just sore, maybe it would relax on its own. I hoped it would “settle down” if I ignored it.
I was wrong.