On My Feet

My foot finally feels back to normal. As of two weeks ago, X-rays showed the fracture had "fused" and my doctor said they looked "very good", but was cagey when asked if my foot had healed. "It takes a year for us to consider it completely healed", he said.

I have noticed a change since then, however. My foot no longer feels inflamed. It sometimes feels sore at the end of the day, but mostly it just feels like a foot, not like a trouble spot. It makes me wonder how I could not have known it was fractured in the first place, given the difference between how it feels now and how it felt for the six weeks or so before I finally saw a doctor about it.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time on my feet. I started the day on an exercise bike at the Y, strictly speaking not on my feet since I was sitting on the bike but I was pedaling. For now, my exercise choices are limited to bike riding and the elliptical machine, no Little Old Lady Exercise Class. I didn't even ask about deadlifting. After errand running I fixed lunch, then accompanied hubby to the grocery store. I still don't go grocery shopping on my own since I'm not sure I should be lifting heavy bags, but I was able to put items into the cart and load and unload lighter bags from the car. Putting away the groceries involved preparing a meatloaf to freeze, marinating a roast, and other prep work that kept me on my feet.

After that we left for Members Night at the Zoo. Hubby has an individual zoo membership that also allows me in free as his guest. We walked around the zoo listening to lectures and petting ferrets and iguanas in company with a few hundred young parents with very loud and sometimes crying children. One of the lectures was in the amphitheater, which allowed me to sit down. The amphitheater was obviously designed with children in mind: the seats were at the height of Kindergarten chairs and my achy, arthritic knees were under my chin. The weather was perfect, though, cool and clear.

While doing all this walking around, what do I call what's on my feet? I keep wanting to say "sneakers" but the $200 footwear with the arch supports and rollbar to prevent me from pronating is as far from the sneakers of my youth as my iPhone is from the first Princess phone Mom had in her bedroom. I could call them running shoes, but according to New Balance, who manufactures them, they are walking shoes. "Walking shoes" to me conjures up images of leather brogues with heavy leather soles, not canvas shoes with rubber soles. We also used to call our sneakers Keds, because that's what brand they were.  If I wore Nikes or Reeboks I could call them Nikes or Reeboks, but New Balances just sounds weird. Can I call them NB's? I suspect consonant harmony, that phonological process that gives us the words "immodest" and "impossible" would turn NB's to "Embee's" and no one would know what I was talking about.

The other thing that's on my feet these days are my trusty Adda sandals, for wearing around the house in the morning and before bed. Adda is a brand made in Thailand and not available in the US. I bought them because in Thailand you do not wear shoes in houses or temples and after two days of taking my lace up shoes off and putting them back on a half dozen times a day, I needed something easier to get on and off. These have sturdy rubber soles, like athletic shoes, and leather straps that Velcro shut. They cost a whole $8.99. 

Wait a minute. "Athletic shoes", that's what I can call what's on my feet.