The NHS describes the condition as a “thickening of tissue” around the nerve in the foot. The sensation is often described as a “shooting, stabbing or burning pain,” or like feeling as though you’ve stood on a pebble. While the issue can often be eased by resting or taking ibuprofen, some people may need to see their GP or a foot specialist. Luckily for BBC Radio 2 star Vernon a chance encounter led to him meeting a foot specialist at a local service station.
It came as he was battling with the electric vehicle charger. Vernon told listeners he was “faffing around” when a Good Samaritan stopped and asked if he needed any help.
He said: “I’ve got Morton's neuroma, it’s a nerve issue between the third and fourth toe on your foot and it’s so painful. So yesterday I was at the services, I was charging the electric car, and I was struggling a little bit with the machine that actually does it, I was faffing around.
“There’s no instructions, it just assumes that you know how to do it, and I didn’t. I didn’t know how to pay, I didn’t know how to get it started. Anyway, we got there in the end and this gentleman who was parked in the bay next door to my car wound down his window and said, ‘Hi Vernon,’ I said, ‘How are you?’ We shook hands, he said, ‘You alright there? You struggling?’ I said, ‘A little bit, I think it’s working now’.
“When we said that it went [buzzing noise] and then it started to charge my car. We got chatting away, ‘Where you going? Blah blah blah.’ Said, ‘I’m going just down the road but I’ve run out of energy so I’m just topping up my car’. ‘Brilliant, what do you do for a living?’ ‘I’m a foot specialist’.”
Vernon went on to say the gentleman then introduced himself as Nick. He continued: “I said, ‘Nick, open your passenger door please’. He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I’ve got a serious foot issue, you need to look at it, it’s killing me’. He went, ‘Are you serious?’ I went, ‘Yeah’.
“So he opened his passenger, I sat in the passenger seat, I took my sock and my shoe off and I got a free foot examination by Nick in the car park of the services. If there were cameras there it would have looked well dodgy.”
Vernon says Nick “squeezed his foot” and instantly knew what the problem was. It prompted him to book another consultation with the doctor and get steroids for his foot.
He added: “I thought why not, he’s very expensive is Nick, he’s a private foot doctor, does all the Premier League players, so I’m like, ‘scooch over’. It was a bit weird.”
