My Left Foot

After nearly 2 months of moaning about how it hurts to walk on my left heel, I finally limped to an orthopedist yesterday.  Nearly $300  later, I learned from an x-ray that my heel bone (a.k.a. the calcaneous) looks like a sharp-angled ski-jump instead of a smooth slope – forcing my Achilles tendon and plantar fascia, the ligament that runs along the bottom of the foot, to react rather negatively to the stress of walking. 

Isn’t it nice when you can learn something new?

But back to me:  Long ago I gave up wearing anything with a significant heel, and in recent years have migrated completely to flats.  In the summer I am especially fond of wearing Tom’s brand shoes – flat-as-a pancake, slipper-like nothings.  They are pretty comfortable until something like this heel pain happens, and then they are not. 

So off I go tomorrow to begin 6 weeks of twice-weekly physical therapy.  And for the next 6 days, I’ll be taking a lot of steroids to calm my inflamed fascia. Steroids usually make me pretty crabby and borderline paranoid so it should be good times around my house in the coming week.

But the truth is that I will likely have this for the rest of my life because my heel bone is what it is; my feet are flat-as-a-pancake, too – another chronic condition contributor! 

Thank god it’s worse in the morning, and actually gets better the more walking you do during the day.  That said, the late middle-aged onset of this condition does mean:

1.       I will likely have to give up passion for Tom’s flats -- at minimum; I won’t be wearing them on the treadmill anymore!  And in one unintended consequence, some child in the third world won’t be getting a free pair of shoes from Tom as I will no longer be a customer.  Sigh.  (For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful brand, Tom’s gives away a pair of shoes for every pair purchased -- which makes one feel better for paying a little too much for shoes that actually, on the face of it, aren’t really that special but are trendy).

2.       Dr. Scholl’s heel jellies will become an annoying necessity for cushioning my heel, but they aren’t super comfortable either as they shift around in your shoe when you walk.

3.       Hello, old grandma cushiony sneakers -- I’ll have to start wearing you with some frequency. Ugh.

4.       I will have to spend money on physical therapy when I’d rather spend it on some expensive shoes.

In any event, feet are a highly desirable attribute of most Homo sapiens so I will do what I am told in an effort to reclaim a tiny bit of quality of life for my aging body.

Foot, don’t fail me now.