Annabelle Speaks

The Pizza Tasted EVEN BETTER Than It Looks, If You Can Believe That

NOM.

 

My recent plan to focus my energies on improving my physical health this year has been going well.  I've cooked food from scratch, vastly reduced my pre-packaged-treats, and have all around been paying more attention to what I'm shoveling into my mouth.  I still sometimes have popcorn for dinner, yes, but popcorn is "whole grain" which totally counts as health food and don't even try to tell me that it doesn't.

 

Exercising has not been going well, because, well...let me just show you.

 

 

Yes.  AGAIN.  Foot-gate 2009 has become Foot-gate 2009/2010.  Last fall I had casts 1.0 through 1.3, and I'm currently on cast 2.1 (2.0 was last week).  This cast will notbe followed by three months of physical therapy, because no matter how much I like my physical therapist my insurance is up, and I am cheap.  Actually, I have most of the equipment I need at home by now, and I can do most of it on my own, but it is a huge pain in the foot (har har).  The cast is just to immobilize everything and get the swelling to go down before I make another go at the various exercises I'm supposed to be doing.

 

I did try a pilates DVD last weekend to see if maybe I could find tolerable exercises that could be done in a cast, but somehow laying on the floor in the living room screamed CUDDLE TIME to the cats and I had a LOT of company there on the rug.  On the plus side, they are warm and fuzzy and who needs exercise?  The DVD lady was annoying anyway.  Exercise is overrated.  Naps are far more important.

A New Header, Green Beer and Shoe Shopping

First, I have to draw attention to the awesome new blog header made by Maria, via Sweet Blog Design.  I'm sure a lot of you view these entries via an RSS feed, but you should totally click over to see the banner.  Because it is pretty and I said so.

Next, I want to wish all my fellow Irish peeps (even those of you who are only Irish one day a year) a happy St. Patrick's Day!

That is indeed the Chicago river, and no it isn't always quite that green.  They dye the river green the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day (which I call Fake Patrick's Day) because this city is insane with the Irish Pride.  Also, they really, really, really like green beer.  Possibly the later has more to do with it than the former.

This, however, did not have anything to do with any green beer consumption I may or may not have taken part in:

I have to wear it all day when I'm sitting AND overnight, alternating left foot one day, right foot the next.  It is just as awesome as you think it is.  But after six months of this my doctor has started to bring up surgery and cutting tendons and OH that does not sound like a good idea.  So the leg brace thing it is. 

Thanks to the above, I am also on an epic quest to find shoes that a) can pass for business casual, b) are flats/very, very low heals, c) are not boots/do not come up over the top of my ankle, d) have some sort of removable foot bed to fit my prescription orthotics, and e) do not look like grandma shoes.  This is a shockingly difficult thing to manage, and there may have been a tear and Xanax filled hour of on-line shoe shopping on Sunday night when I couldn't sleep.  The shoe-shopping gene that women are (stereotypically) born with clearly skipped me, and I am finding this process to be pure torture.  If anyone wants to do my shopping for me, I wear a size eight and a half.

Lastly, while the snow has been gone from Chicago for a week or two, I keep forgetting to post this picture of my back yard.  In the Midwest the snow melts sideways.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all.  

May your thoughts be as glad as the shamrocks.
May your heart be as light as a song.
May each day bring you bright happy hours,
That stay with you all year long.

Aggressive Treatment

Last week was not my best week ever.  It started with an epic Monday involving a cab ride the wrong way down a one-way portion of Lower Wacker, followed by roughly a half-gallon of hopefully-water pouring down on me as I stepped onto an elevator.  I did survive both the harrowing cab ride and the mysteriously wet elevator ride.  It speaks to my tolerance for the strange that I chose to ride the rainy elevator to the 27^th floor without considering the fact that maybe I should take a different elevator.

So it was with a “how much worse can it get?” attitude that I walked myself to the podiatrist on Friday afternoon to talk about my sore heels and get some shoe inserts or something.  The doctor poked my feet, watched me squirm, frowned at the amount of swelling and the News-To-Me difference in the length of my legs, and took a set of x-rays.  She put the x-rays up on the little light box on the wall, and I was all “Hey! Feet! Cool!  Also, what are those spikes on the bottom?  And why are the backs of my heels all jagged like that?”

Doc took a deep breath, turned around to face me, and said Very Seriously, “You need aggressive treatment.”

Holy shit!

So, I do have plantar fasciitis, and heel spurs, and wear/mild fracturing at the back of my heels…in both feet.  This is what happens when you combine a high tolerance for pain, a tendency toward hypochondria, and a Fear of Bothering People for No Good Reason.  At the first twinge of pain I immediately diagnose myself with something life threatening, then spend the next several weeks/months teetering between my desire to run to the doctor omg-I’m-going-to-die and my desire to not waste their time because I am (usually) wrong about the severity of whatever issue.  In this case my ability to put up with the pain seems to have let me wait-it-out a little too long.

Because the left one is worse-off, that is in a cast and boot now, and my right is in a beefed-up tennis shoe.  I have two to three weeks in a cast/boot, two to three weeks in a boot without the inner cast, and then physical therapy.  Then we see how the right foot has been getting along and possibly do it all over again.

In 2009 I have spent three weeks full-time at Rush Hospital, plus outpatient treatment for eight more, I had an eyelid infection that involved wearing an eye patch for a week, and now I have a cast/boot combo.  Clearly this is the Year Of The Medical Expenses.  I can’t wait until October 26^th to see how expensive my first dentist appointment in eight years will be!

 

I Can't Go To The Doctor Without Months Of Thought, But I Can Go Right To Doctor Google And/Or My Blog And Ask The Internet What To Do. Also, I Just Want To Attract Foot Fetish Google Hits To My Blog, Because I Am Short On Entertainment This Week.

Until the last year and a half, I have never been the sort who goes to the doctor for much of anything.  I have been lucky to be a really healthy person, and as I was raised in a family where a cold or the flu is never a reason to waste time going to the doctor, I simply don’t go.  I get a typical annual exam every few years, but that’s it.

But this year, because of all the hospital bills I’ve incurred since my original stay in January, I am going to be able to claim my medical expenses as itemized deductions on my tax return.  It sucks that my medical care has cost so much, but yay for tax deductions!  As I’m coming up to the last few months of the year, I’m trying to front-load any “normal” medical stuff I have yet to do, since I won’t likely get to take medical expenses as a tax deduction every again (knock on wood).  I have set up a dentist appointment, and as soon as I get up the energy to seek out a midwife/NP I also plan to have a standard annual exam.

But, see, there is this Other Thing that I don’t know what to do with.  It isn’t gross at all, just somewhat painful.  For the last couple of months, every step I take, my heel hurts.  Well, both of them, really, but mostly the left one.  It is worst after I’ve been sitting for a while, but it persists all day.  I work a desk job, so it isn’t like I’m on my feet all day.  And I commute in nice athletic shoes, not dress shoes, so that shouldn’t be a problem either.

Doctor google seems to think that the most likely issue is either plantar fasciitis or heel spurs.  Both are more common in “middle aged adults”, which as a 29 year old I am not, but the descriptions are very, very accurate.  Ultimately the treatments for both boil down to stretching exercises and arch/heal support inserts for shoes, so no big deal.

My decision then is to either go the route I would usually take, inventing my own stretches and using gel inserts from Target (I’d be gellin’!) and only going to the doctor seven or eight months from now if the pain became unbearable, or go to the doctor now and learn proper stretching techniques and get proper shoe inserts right away.

I see that the doctor approach sounds perfectly reasonable, and yet I feel really stupid going to the doctor with a complaint of “Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this.”  Don’t they always answer with, “Well, then don’t do that.”?  That doesn’t work so well when that = walking.  Also, since I don’t have a primary care doctor, should I find a podiatrist?  I have good insurance, so that shouldn’t be a problem, but I have to say I feel really silly going to the doctor for this.

99% of the time I’m glad my parents raised me not to be the sort to run to the doctor for every single ache and pain in the world, but I do need to find a happy medium where I don’t second-guess every decision to consult a medical professional.