More Foot Excitement--Seriously!

Oh, my gosh, I am so excited that I'm actually standing up to type this.

This morning, just after I ordered my new ball winder and swift... (y'all are going to have to Google that if you don't know what it is because I am too excited to find a photo on-line. Basically, they are the two contraptions that allow you to wind skeins of yarn into those pretty, pretty balls of yarn that don't get all in a snarl when you knit out of them. Of course, my husband asked, "Why doesn't yarn just already come in balls?" for which I had no good answer. Why doesn't it? Anyone?)

But ANYWAY, as I was saying, I had just ordered my new ball winder and swift (early birthday present) when my podiatrist's office called. Did I have a moment to speak with Dr. Martin? Yes, I did.

Dr. Martin got on the phone and told me that he reviewed all of my films and scans and everything about my case last night but that something was still bothering him. He said that after yesterday's lidocaine injection into my sinus tarsi cavity, my foot became instantly more flexible. And that was kind of in the back of his mind as being inconsistent with the physiology of my foot. He went to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night (Ah, yet another person who can blame sleepless nights on me!) with an epiphany that maybe the problem with my foot wasn't due to the failed fusion or the strange coalition (I know, I know...I don't really understand all of the terminology either. Whenever someone refers to the "coalition" in my foot, I immediately picture an angry mob pressing for union scale wages and coffee breaks.) but due to a totally different problem, namely that the compression on the canal/cavity might be causing an unpleasant bone-on-bone situation.

Okay, if I've lost you... well, it doesn't matter because the basic idea is that if Dr. Martin can insert this little thimble-like thing into the cavity, it will hold it open and stop the compression and hence stop the sort-of excruciating pain I've been in. The only way to test the hypothesis first, though, would be to tape the foot in a position that mimics the way it would be if the insert were already in my foot. Could I come to Queens and be taped?

OH, YES, I MOST CERTAINLY COULD.

You know how I'm always looking for signs that things are going to work out? Well, as I was driving to Queens, first I saw THIS van: ("Refridgerated?" Good Grief, even TRUCKS need editors) and then as I was passing under Utopia Parkway, a bird pooped on my car.

Not really the signs I was hoping for.

But then I got to talking to this woman in Dr. Martin's waiting room and she told me she's done FIVE surgeries with him. She had deformed bones, too, and she thinks he's a really good doctor. And then we got to talking more and she even wanted my blog address!

So anyway, long story short (shorter? Short-ISH?) Dr. Martin taped my foot and I have been walking around like a normal person every since. (Well, normal-er. Normal-ISH?) (Oh, just hush.)

There is still a slight twinge every now and then when I step funny but dudes, I'm walking with a normal gait and not like some sort of sore-footed Hobbit.

I cannot express to you how incredible this is after the past two years of FULF-dom. It's like the difference in the movie The Wizard of Oz between Kansas and Oz. Black and white to color. It's simply freaking amazing.

And you know the other thing? For the first time in a long time, I feel energized by HOPE that there might be some sort of answer to my pain. I still have a ways to go--if this taping shows that the issue has to do with compression, I still have to have surgery (scheduled for February 26) and I have to recover from that and do some intensive physical therapy.

I know that my foot pain is nothing compared with the issues some people are facing. But for me, as an active, fit, forty-three year old woman, it has had a catastrophic effect on my life. The idea that the end may be in sight --that I might once again walk to the mailbox without even thinking about it twice --is just miraculous to me. I swear I'll never take it for granted again.