I Feel Like a Slug

For the past nearly two weeks, I've been wearing this really attractive boot on my foot because I have a stress fracture. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I'm pretty sure it happened while I was running.


Stress fractures are fairly common among runners. When my foot started to hurt, I just kept running for a couple of weeks -- until it became so painful that I couldn't even walk without wanting to yelp out in pain. (Which I did sometimes, but only when no one else was home or within earshot.)


I diagnosed myself on the internet. I guess I should have gone to medical school. Yeah, I was pretty sure before I even set foot (ouch) in the sports medicine clinic that I had a stress fracture in the metatarsal bones in my foot....and I had also learned that about the only thing you can do to treat a stress fracture is to stop running (BOOOOOOO!) and clomp around in one of those really fashionable boots until the foot feels better.


Guess what? That's exactly what the sports med doctor said! I could have saved myself a few hundred bucks, I guess. Of course, I don't have an X-ray machine in the house. I've been thinking about getting one now, though.


The worst part of all this is I can't run. I can't really even walk. Well, I can walk, but it sounds like clomp, step, clomp, step, clomp, step. It's noisy and it's slow and I'm really supposed to take it easy on the foot anyway. The doctor did say I could swim, however. Unfortunately, I'm not a very good swimmer. I guess he should have said, "You may swim," not "You can swim."


I really need some exercise. I'm actually missing being able to feel the complete exhaustion I used to hate when I was running. Maybe this will make me appreciate it more when I can go back to it.


I may be downsizing to the attractive post-op shoe tomorrow or Friday, though. We're going to California next week and I'd like to have something a little more manageable to clomp around with than this big boot. 


Can't wait to see what happens at security at the airport when they get a load of my boot. Do you think they'll make me take it off? It's kind of a process that involves several noisy velcro straps. I guess I could just opt for the pat down. That would be fun.


Well, whatever....I just want my foot to be better!


:)