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On the morning of the 23rd my common peroneal nerve gave way, leaving my right foot pretty useless, and giving me a gait that now makes me look like a crab scampering its way to the ocean. It’s called Foot Drop, and the neurosurgeons hemmed and hawed, put me in a splint and have recommended physiotherapy…years of it.

Needless to say I wanted a second opinion, so off I went to Web MD. It doesn’t look too good, the docs were right, it’s going to be years before I can begin to walk like I used to. Now that may not be a bad thing, because as a bow-legged freak, I tended to resemble Chaplin at his cinematic finest.

What I found interesting was the cause of the nerve damage… sitting in a cross-legged position, or with one leg crossed over the other. The doctors say that this sort of nerve damage has a high incidence among Indians who favour that sitting position.

Going to a hospital has always been a traumatic experience for me considering I have lived a life of excess on all counts. And you could notice the doctor’s brow darkening as he asked me the stock introductory questions: Do you smoke? “Ummm…yes, but I quit.” When? “Yesterday!” Do you drink? “Errr…sometimes.” When was your last drink? “Yesterday!” Do you eat red meat? “Yes” When was the last time you ate red meat? “Yesterday.”

That’s when I realised that yesterday was, for all intents and purposes, a very good day. But it also probably was the last day of my old life. To put it in pop terms, December 23 is now my own personal 2012.

My life is now altered irrevocably: I can’t smoke and have to give up red meat and cut back on the alcohol. Of course people are telling me how life’s going to be great, and obstacles are merely here to test our mettle, and that there are others worse off. To them I say, hogwash. It’s going to suck. And I’m just going to have to deal with it…and I already have.

I’ve got this really nifty cane, bought a splendid Fedora, and now that I’m handicapped, can be as rude and politically incorrect as I want to be. A sort of Gregory House, only younger, and with no opiate habit.

I miss my foot, much like I’m going to miss my old life. It stood by me through the tumult and tribulations of growing up, rebelling, careening, and imploding.

But the new one could be great too, I guess. Who knows, maybe the physiotherapy will work wonders. Maybe it won’t. Either way, life goes on. We wake up and we get on with it. Some people run, others walk, and I shuffle, at least we’re all heading in the same direction. See you when you get there.