Diagnosis: Second Opinion

I had been favoring my foot in my yoga classes, where "toe tucking" is a basic action, and mentioned that I was having some trouble and would try alternate pose options until this surgery. Two women in the class stopped me on the way out and asked if I'd had a second opinion, and if surgery was really the way to go - their skeptical tone and urging prompted me to get a second opinion.
Second Opinion podiatrist was a very, very nice guy, funny and witty, and much lower-key than the first. I had two visits with him. In the first, he made what I called a "tape slipper" on my foot and told me to keep a journal for three days. Which I did. At first the tension it created, actually pulling my big toe to the left and allowing some air into the joint, felt pretty good. Though by Day Two the foot was still fatiguing while driving and basic errands, etc. and Day Three was completely uneventful either way. The follow-up on the fourth day included my X-Ray results (he referred to the one showing the bone spurs as "the money shot!") and offered the same surgery diagnosis and "some time in the next year or so" timeline as First Opinion. At that point I had to choose which doctor was going to do it.

I selected "First Opinion" doc to do the procedure. Somehow he just seemed a bit more intense and tuned in to it all which felt better to me than the friendly funny doc. And then I started asking my friends who'd had similar procedures a LOT of questions. And then I started looking it up on the Internet... yipes.