It still hurts. All of it hurts.
My back. My side. My leg. My soul.
I’ve mentioned this in prior posts, but yesterday once again I repeatedly found myself needing something across the room and it was too big of a struggle, too painful, to get up and take three or four strides to get what I needed. As a result, I “made do” without. I’m awfully tired of “making do”… of settling for “good enough” instead of striving for “good… or hopefully better.”
I did some WedMD/Dr. Google searching. I suspect I’m suffering at least in part from metatarsalgia, a burning pain in the ball of my foot. I had to google “ball of foot” actually because I long thought the ball of the foot was the more rounded section of the heel… which apparently is just the heel. The ball of the foot is the udnercarriage near the toes, the part of the sole near the metatarsals, the bones I can still see on my skeletal worksheets from Mrs. Barton’s fifth grade class. Why the heel segment that looks like a rounded ball isn’t the ball of the foot, well… I just wasn’t ever very good at science.
I’m also not very good at googling and searching and patience and, well, gosh the list is pretty dang long. Even in the seemingly limitless e-space of the world wide web (which is limited no matter what people say due to memory storage capcaities… there are ALWAYS limits… it’s just that the limit may be such an incomprehensibly large number that it SEEMS unlimited… albeit come to think of it, there are diverging series that ARE in fact infinite… but that’s math and I’m not so good at math either).
I digress, however. What I’ve basically come down to is that I probably need to try something different to improve my recovery. And I need to recover. I’ve skipped one race and made it through two marathons in great pain so far, putting up times that when I first started running would have been pretty good but now seem frustratingly depressing… and super painful. I’ve long resisted orthotics and physical therapists because it all seemed so vodoo mumbo jumbo. Part of that is that once people start talking about muscle groups and toss around latin names my eyes glaze over and I start thinking about cheesecake… which come to think of it may account for the ballooning weight issues that plague me all the more when I’m not running.
Again, I digress. The point is that today I broke down and went on a quest for the supposed treasures of Dr Scholls. Part of the reason I’ve always been leery of these things is a completely irrational view. I’ve always felt utilizing orthotics made me really old… it’s something old people need… which is totally bogus, totally without merit, and crazy. And yet, even after telling myself all that, it feels like a defeat to need them. It feels to me like I’ve become enfeebled and need help from others rather than being a self-reliant person. Which is all incredibly dumb because I’m well aware that society is predicated on the notion of relying on other people, for safety, security, for success.
And yet… and yet…
It all just makes me feel so very helpless and old.
I price compared various Dr Scholls and generic insoles and foot remedies online. Rite Aid seemed to offer a sale of BOGO 50% off so I opted to hoof it down to my local store…. and of course the product I was eyeing or the BOGO had only one left in stock. So much for a deal.
But I wasn’t 100% sure WHAT product might address my nagging pains and aches. Much like when wandering into a hardware store, I was overwhelmed by the options, descriptions, layout and offerings. I finally went with a shotgun smorgasbord approach hoping maybe one of these would offer relief. I also picked up some more salonpas figuring if I can’t remedy the pain, maybe I could conceal it for a time.
As I checked out and fumbled with my various meds and treatment options, it all felt so oppressively desperate. There was no guarantee any of this would work. It felt like a fool’s errand to even try. And yet, hobbling back to my hovel, the pain in my side and leg growing with each new footfall, the tightness in the ball of my foot exploding outward from the bottom of my foot to the tip of my head, I had to try and do something.
This is what old feels like — scrabbling for a floating lifeline that may be tied to nothing. What does tomorrow bring?