A series for Lent.
I am grateful I can walk.
There have been many times when I either couldn't or was in too much pain to walk. I had severe sciatica in my thirties that went on for several years without painkillers or any information on how to deal with it. It's been decades but I can still remember the pain. Everything hurt so much that I limped with both feet.
I've had back pain which made it painful to walk.
And I've had foot pain from hell.
Screaming pain hit my right foot from nowhere. My doctor (and everyone else) was convinced I had sprained it, despite the fact that I had done nothing to sprain it (you don't just wake up with a sprained foot.) I was sent to have it x-rayed in case I fractured it. After three months and increasingly stronger painkillers that did nothing except exacerbate the depression, my doctor finally realised the pain was from a pinched nerve. Not sciatica (I would have recognised that) but just a general, you know, nerve. I had an MRI scan (nightmare! never again!) but there was nothing weird going on in my back. For six months I could hardly walk. I couldn't put my foot down without it screaming in pain. I hobbled, I limped, I cried. I tried a walking stick but that didn't help. However, knowing that it was a nerve in my back and not the foot itself, I persisted. I set a target of going to Kew Gardens every month and enjoying a walk. I walked around the squares of Bloomsbury. After a year, it began to ease. My fitness level had fallen to general blobbiness. So I kept on walking until I got it back.
Then plantar fasciitis hit my left foot. Once again, I could hardly walk. The pain was excruciating. I'd had it before but only for a few days, never months. There was heel pain as well as instep pain. Not able to walk properly, I limped, never touching my heel to the ground. This led to hip pain, which still, now, after two years, flares up and causes agony. It took close to eight months for the plantar fasciitis to heal (mostly). I can now only wear Skechers shoes (because they're spongy) with very expensive insoles to correct my feet.
When I walk now, my speed is twice that of twenty year olds, who drag along like corpses on the sidewalk.
There's pain but I keep going. I can't run, do fancy exercises at the gym, go on marathons, attempt extreme Pilates or yoga. But I can walk. It's enough.
I am grateful I can walk.
There have been many times when I either couldn't or was in too much pain to walk. I had severe sciatica in my thirties that went on for several years without painkillers or any information on how to deal with it. It's been decades but I can still remember the pain. Everything hurt so much that I limped with both feet.
I've had back pain which made it painful to walk.
And I've had foot pain from hell.
Screaming pain hit my right foot from nowhere. My doctor (and everyone else) was convinced I had sprained it, despite the fact that I had done nothing to sprain it (you don't just wake up with a sprained foot.) I was sent to have it x-rayed in case I fractured it. After three months and increasingly stronger painkillers that did nothing except exacerbate the depression, my doctor finally realised the pain was from a pinched nerve. Not sciatica (I would have recognised that) but just a general, you know, nerve. I had an MRI scan (nightmare! never again!) but there was nothing weird going on in my back. For six months I could hardly walk. I couldn't put my foot down without it screaming in pain. I hobbled, I limped, I cried. I tried a walking stick but that didn't help. However, knowing that it was a nerve in my back and not the foot itself, I persisted. I set a target of going to Kew Gardens every month and enjoying a walk. I walked around the squares of Bloomsbury. After a year, it began to ease. My fitness level had fallen to general blobbiness. So I kept on walking until I got it back.
Then plantar fasciitis hit my left foot. Once again, I could hardly walk. The pain was excruciating. I'd had it before but only for a few days, never months. There was heel pain as well as instep pain. Not able to walk properly, I limped, never touching my heel to the ground. This led to hip pain, which still, now, after two years, flares up and causes agony. It took close to eight months for the plantar fasciitis to heal (mostly). I can now only wear Skechers shoes (because they're spongy) with very expensive insoles to correct my feet.
When I walk now, my speed is twice that of twenty year olds, who drag along like corpses on the sidewalk.
There's pain but I keep going. I can't run, do fancy exercises at the gym, go on marathons, attempt extreme Pilates or yoga. But I can walk. It's enough.
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