It has not been a banner year for Creampuff's general physical well-being. And it all started in May. Inspired by the beautiful spring weather, I decided I would try to improve my general health by walking more.
I was walking Effie for about an hour, four or five days a week (don't freak out - Drtr, or one of her TWO SETS OF DOG WALKERS were walking her when I was not). I decided that I would try to work my way up to walking her 5km every time we went out and after a few weeks, we hit that goal and I was very proud of myself and felt great.
There was only one problem - my right foot hurt.
I've had plantar fasciitis on and off for years but it hadn't bothered me for ages and I'd somehow misplaced my old orthotics AND the boots they were in back in 2015. I tried stretching and did all the exercises they tell you to do and made sure I was wearing good shoes and occasionally took an ibuprofen, but I continued to walk and it continued to get worse, to the point where, every time I stood up, I would LURCH forward, like Frankenstein's monster, limping like an idiot and hanging on to furniture for dear life, until my foot warmed up enough for me to walk more normally.
After a few weeks of this, my left knee, tired of being lurched on to every time I tried to get up, said "FUCK YOU, FATTY" and also went out. So that put an end to my excellent 5km walks and also enabled me to shuffle sadly about for most of the summer. It was funny, because I had increased my endurance so much that I didn't get tired from walking but I could only do it real, real slow.
I slowly healed, reduced my dog walking time and went and got a prescription for orthotics. And then my stomach said "FUCK YOU, FATTY" and I couldn't do much walking for almost a month because I would get dizzy from not eating. But you know what also happens when you're not eating? Your body starts to eat itself! Sure it fuckers up your metabolism, but it did lead to less pressure on my foot and I started to get excited about walking again. I just got back up to 5km per walk this week! But now my foot is hurting again.
So yesterday, I FINALLY got it together to go in for an orthotics appointment.
The last time I got orthotics, I put my feet in a box of foam at the chiropractor's and then, two weeks later, the orthotics arrived. THIS time, I had an hour long appointment with a professional pedorthist whose name rhymed with "Belson".
Belson was so nice that I ended up not making a joke about how the first four letters in "pedorthist" are "pedo". He spent a lot of time looking at my feet on the floor, testing their range of motion on the exam table and repeatedly had to tell me to relax my feet, which was hard, because a) I don't like having my feet touched and b) I'm used to stretching my feet when they're touched, because that's what our yoga teachers always want us to do.
"This big toe isn't as flexible as the left one," he noted.
"Oh yeah," I said, a memory surfacing like a magical porpoise, "I BROKE that toe doing a punch front off a springboard in 7th grade!"
Belson made a note.
"And there's a sort of bump here on the right side of the right foot."
"Holy shit," I said, as a memory narwhal joined the porpoise, "I BROKE that foot falling off a curb when I was 12! Man, you're like a palm reader. But for feet! A SOLE reader!"
Belson, to his credit, gave me an LOL.
After the foot exam, he wanted to watch me walk (because come on, who wouldn't?), so I paraded around the office as Belson analyzed my gait.
The results were not good.
"Well," he said, "I'm kind of surprised that it's your right foot that's hurting, because it's your left side that's really messed up. Your knees are a little hyperextended and then your heel...well, it's like every step, your heel slides out like - "
He did a move that looked like this:
I could NOT stop laughing.
Belson 3D imaged my feet (THE FUTURE IS NOW) and I'm going to pick my orthotics in a couple of weeks. I am VERY excited at the prospect of being able to walk pain-free.
The dog is going to be EXHAUSTED.
