The Agony of De-Feet

I'll never be your beast of burden

I've walked for miles, my feet are hurting

All I want is you to make love to me

                            -- The Rolling Stones

I have had problems with my feet since I was born. I am flat-footed, more or less, and I pronate badly. When I was younger, I wore those corrective Mary Janes that supposedly helped something, but as I have aged, gained weight, and tried to increase my walking habits, I find I have more foot problems than ever.

Last September, we went on vacation. The shower in the condo had a tiled floor that was walking on pebbles. By the time we came home, I had a case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot.

I did stretches, etc., but my husband was undergoing ankle fusion surgery in late November, and I was more interested in preparing the house for him than I was in taking care of myself.

In February, I mentioned the pain in my foot to my primary care doctor. She gave me exercises, which I did, and the plantar fasciitis pain throughout the arch went away, but it seemed to center directly in my heel.

It feels like I am stepping on a railroad spike when I step down. It hurts more in the afternoons, after I've been up a while.

I continued the exercises and ice but it wasn't helping. Since it seemed, in fact, to be growing worse, I saw an orthopedic doctor at Carilion Wednesday. I was there for two hours. The result? Yep, you have some pain in your foot, here's a squishier heel cup that might help more than the one you bought online. Sorry, we don't do steroid shots for this kind of thing anymore. If you want, I can refer you to the "foot pain" people, they like to do surgery.

Surgery? He had me ready to bolt out of the office (well, hop and limp fast) as soon as that word came out of his mouth. After my gallbladder surgery and the subsequent hell I have been through with that, I've decided I'd rather die than have another surgery. I mean come on. Surgery?

He took an x-ray and said I had a heel spur but he thought the problem was little "stalagmites" on the bone. I guess that's some kind of bone degeneration, maybe? Nothing's turned up in my chart yet to let me know. Actually, my visit with him isn't even in my chart. It's like it never happened. (Maybe they won't bill me. Ha.)

After that unhelpful visit, I decided to change up my exercises. I will go to mild, passive-resistance stretches instead of things like the runners stretch (up against the wall, foot back, really stretching calf muscle), which is what I had been doing. I also have decided to use KT Tape and yesterday I asked my chiropractor to use her therapeutic ultrasound on my foot. I have a personal use ultrasound machine here at home, and when I am having a non-tape day, I will use the ultrasound on it here.

We seem to have entered a phase in medicine where if you're sick, too bad. You're going to have to figure out how to deal with it yourself. Someone told me today he had cancelled a planned shoulder surgery because he had to quarantine for 14 days prior and have two negative Covid-45 tests, one within three days of the surgery, before he could get the surgery. So he cancelled it until "this stuff is all over and there's a vaccine or whatever." That was his decision, and I understand both sides. But still, something is wrong somewhere.

Our health care needs overhauled in more ways than one. Everyone likes to brag about how great our healthcare system is, but I don't see it. All I see is a method of taking money from people that is foolproof, because everyone has an illness at some point.

Here's to walking, hopefully pain free.