You may remember that I went to the doctor last month for foot pain I’ve been having for nearly a year now. She referred me to both a podiatrist and a vascular surgeon. I saw the podiatrist first, and he said I have stress fractures in my feet. One of the things he recommended was new, more supportive shoes both for indoors and outdoors. We got those that afternoon.
This morning, I had to go to the hospital at 8:30AM for an ultrasound of the arteries in my legs. The tech who took the ultrasound was afraid of dogs, but she is trying to get over it, so she didn’t pass me off to the other tech and faced her fears! I put Felix on my wheelchair on the other side of the bed I was on, so he was pretty far away. She was impressed with how calm and well behaved he was.
I got two pictures of us at the hospital. The first was a selfie in the waiting room, where you can see his service dog bandana that Karin made. Then I got a picture of him on my wheelchair while I was having my ultrasound. I also got a video of him walking in the hospital hallways. I’m using my new leash that Karin made which attaches directly to my wheelchair. I’m also using a new vest Karin made that is purple and all about disability pride! The pictures and video are below.
It seemed from the tech’s reactions to my exam that my arteries are probably all fine. I still have an appointment with the vascular surgeon coming up where I will get the results, though.
I got drive-through Starbucks on my way home as a reward, and then had a wonderful morning with Brad and Tamara. We had so much fun together!
All too soon, though, it was time to go to the podiatrist. You see, ever since the last appointment with him, I’ve been having a lot of ankle pain. So I made another appointment. They took Xrays of my ankles, and felt all around them. Felix sat next to me in my chair with my new shoes next to him on the seat so the doctor could look and them and approve.
The doctor said that my pain is all muscle pain. I must have weak ankles, and using the soft squishy slides in the house is causing my ankles to do extra work that they aren’t able to do.
He said I have two options. First, I could wear my Tevas all the time, even in the house. This does’t work because I like to take my shoes off on the bed or couch, and the Tevas have three straps on each shoe. So it would be very annoying. It also doesn’t work because in this house we have strict indoor vs outdoor shoe rules. So I’d have to also get shoe covers for the Tevas which would be doubly annoying.
The second option is to get ankle braces to wear especially with the Oofos slides, but maybe also with the Tevas. He said that any of the good brands of orthopedic slides are going to be squishy like that and cause my ankles to work harder than they do when I am barefoot. But I have to wear the Oofos inside because of the stress fractures of my metatarsals. So ankle braces it is.
Unfortunately, since I have medicaid, they couldn’t give them to me there. I have to get them from an orthotics place. So the orthotics place is supposed to call me sometime in the next two days. Then I have to go in and get fitted.
I’ve also decided that to stop all this damage to my stress fractures and ankles, that I need to use my wheelchair around the house and not just when we go out. I also need to use it when we go out more. Often when we go out I think we won’t be walking or standing longer than 10 min or so, but it ends up that we do. So it’s not good for my feet (or hips!). So I need to just start taking my wheelchair everywhere and using it everywhere. Which sucks, but it is what it is.
At least we’re done moving, and all we have to do now is finish unpacking! Tam’s nice enough to let us take our time with the unpacking so that Brad doesn’t overexert himself and I don’t injure my feet more. So we have that to look forward to, yay!