Friday, October 22, 2010

:O :O :O :O :O

21 Days Until the Event!

Three weeks from today.

*faint* *faint* *faint again*

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Just Call Me a Cowgirl!

I wear spurs!

Or at least a spur. I wear it all the time. Because...

I have a heel spur!

Urgh.

Funny, but not really, story.

Almost this entire year, while training for the 3-Day, I've had pain in my left heel. I thought for oh...three months or so...that it was because I was so out of shape and hadn't built up my endurance. I thought it was because I switched to sandals in the summer. I thought it was because I was fat.

I tried so many different shoes hoping they'd help. They didn't. I've tried inserts hoping they'd help. They haven't.

Finally I started whining to my mom so incessantly she couldn't help but listen. "It feels like I've slammed my heel down on concrete repeatedly until I shattered every bone in it. Now it feels like that ALL the time. Weird thing is, it stops hurting the longer I walk. And hurts the most when I get up in the morning."

She informed me that's how her foot felt when she had plantar fasciitis.

D'oh!

I started googling, and yeah, sounded just like it. I googled best shoes for plantar fasciitis and found my New Balance 1200s. They didn't do a whole lot for the pain, but hoo boy, do I love 'em otherwise! I started stretching my foot, popping lots of Ibuprofen and doing everything the doctor told her to do to get rid of her plantar fasciitis. Except stay off my feet.

Didn't help a whole lot.

I finally broke down about a week ago and went whining to my doctor. He did an x-ray and informed me I have a heel spur. Whipped out the x-ray and showed it to me. OK, I'm nuts, but I think it looks pretty cool. Like a shark's tooth sticking out of my heel bone!

He said it's probably been building up for 15-20 years and started hurting so much because I've increased my walking big time.

The good news is, he told me what to do about it and said I can still do the 3-Day.

The not so good news is, he said losing weight would help a lot.

First, he gave me some supersonic Aleve or something. Gotta admit, as much as I hate taking pills and as good as I am about forgetting to take them, I'm loving this anti-inflammatory. And not forgetting it so much.

He told me to ice my heel 20 minutes twice a day, how to stretch it before I get out of bed, how to stretch it before I walk. And he told me to get heel cups or a heel cushion. The cushion sounds like the pillow one of my old bosses had to sit on after her hemorrhoid surgery. I couldn't find the cushion, but I finally found the heel cups. They're gel cups that wrap around your heels and unlike inserts, don't irritate the rest of your foot. I gotta say, so far, I'm really loving those puppies!

Admittedly I haven't walked as much as I should have this past week. Okay, I haven't walked much at all. But I've done everything I'm supposed to, and my heel is feeling much, much, much, oh so much better. I also have worn my tennies non-stop. To heck with any other shoe, the 3-Day is now days away!

Days.away.

:faint: