Not long ago in the mountains of Spain, a disgruntled husband ( mine, to be specific ) was plagued by seed corns in the sole of his foot. “I need to see a chiropodist,” he wailed. I must travel far and wide to the English speaking costa to find one I can communicate with. Here I must add that he does actually speak enough Spanish to get the by but the stroke he had several years ago makes remembering it a bit difficult. We have all mostly heard of corns but apparently seed corns are different, they cause pain when walking and don’t act the same when you use the usual treatments on the market. 

I asked him why it was necessary to drive so far to find someone who speaks English, showing them the foot would be sufficient, surely.......

Here insert some huffing and puffing but no particular answer so I quickly googled local podiatrists, found someone in our local town and printed out a map to find him. 

An appointment was made, he went down for it and the problem was sorted, the begrudging comment was, “He didn’t speak any English”. 

At this point I should mention that the stroke he had was on the opposite side of the brain to the side that causes a droopy mouth and mobility problems on one side. There are after effects, apart from his short term memory letting him down. ( it’s only possible to be asked to do one thing at a time, any more and his whole system reboots. ) It seems any idea he has, sticks. I liken it to a Jack Russel with a bone. If it’s not the best idea for what ever reason, we talk about it. This is the way we work with any idea either one of us has. After discussion we come to an agreement about the best way to carry the idea out, except now, after a while, he goes back to default setting and the original idea pops up again as if we never discussed it.

Now fast forward many months and he has another seed corn......... instead of hot footing it down to the original podiatrist to have it removed, (no pun intended) ( he has returned to default setting and the original idea of finding someone who speaks English) he asks a friend who she uses, and if they spoke English.  He was given a new name with a podiatrist in a different nearby town and just to prove his original idea was in fact the right one, went down to make an appointment. 

Off he went to keep the appointment and returned some hours later. I was a little concerned but he does tend to go shopping at any opportunity so I waited. When he came home he explained what had happened...........

When he arrived he was shown into a treatment room and asked to lay on a bed, he explained in his best Spanish ( the podiatrist didn’t speak any English ) that he wasn’t able to lay flat on his back due to his spine curving but he was told it was no problem as he needed to be on his front with his head over a padded hole so he could breath and was asked where the problem was and he pointed towards his foot.  

The podiatrist then started to massage his calf, kneading and pummelling.  I tried to ask him if he had stopped the guy and asked if it was necessary but he just told me to wait a minute while he explained the rest to us. ( we had friends staying at the time and they were listening, enthralled ) he continued..... after the pummelling the chap disappeared and came back with a tens machine and put stickers on his leg and turned it up so he could feel the tingling. My original question formed on my lips but I was silenced. After suitable time with machine on his leg the chap removed it, disappeared and returned with an ultrasound machine and treatment resumed. By now I had given up with the original question as I was trying hard not to laugh, as were our friends. After the ultrasound came........acupuncture........ well we were in stitches, tears rolling down our faces. 

Eventually the treatment ended and he was taken out to reception, charged 30€ and the chap got his phone out and showed him a photo of his foot with seed corn and told him the equivalent of, you really need to get that seen to !!. 

We were crying at this point, he had no answers as to why he had continued without stopping the chap and asking questions. All he could say was he thought the chap would remove the corn after he had done all the other stuff........we howled. It seemed the Podiatrist shared his premises with an osteopath.........

Shortly after, a trip was made to the original guy. I sent him with some advice.......make sure he doesn’t try to give you a facial....... Thankfully there were no further problems, the corn was removed and when the Podiatrist was thanked.......he replied in English !!!