I had a follow up to my follow up foot appointment this morning, so I wanted to provide an update on my status. But first, a quite aside - Why is it never just good news? It seems like everyone always says "Do you want the good news or the bad news?, but rarely is it "I have great news!". But I digress...
The good news is that my foot is ready to begin action again. Today. Everything is healed and I have restored the same mobility (which isn't much, but that is a story for another post) in it as I had before my injury. Actually, I've known this for the past week or so, as I've been out of das boot for a while now. While not all shoes feel good on my feet, most of my running shoes have wide enough toe boxes that I can put them on and off without a shred of pain. I've also been walking quite a bit to keep my muscular-skeletal system intact (also a topic for another post), so that when I do return to running, it will be a much easier transition than going from zero impact. While it isn't quite as impactful as running, it does maintain some sense of normalcy for my body.
So what's the bad news? Well, I'm glad you asked!
The bad news is that after inspecting my orthotics, I pointed out several mistakes that were made, which required them to be sent back. I'm glad I took them time to look them over, because I found 2 issues that I believe may have put me back in a boot, had I taken them out and started running in them. Both of the issues have to do with the rigid lining under my big toe that serves to prevent it from going into the position that caused the chip fracture. To summarize the issue simply - there was no rigid lining! Correction - 1 foot had padding that I was told "might" do the job, while the other foot had none, which was noted as a mistake. MIGHT?!?!?! WTF? Serious oopsies on that one. So I told them to fix it - NOW!
So here I am, physically able to begin running again, but I am hampered by a technical difficulty. To say I am frustrated would be an understatement. But, I've been patient this long, so I'll just keep progressing in the meantime and hopefully they'll be here faster than was forecast (up to 2 weeks for a "rush" order).
I'm happy that I have healed in the lower end of the spectrum of time that is typical for a bone fracture (6-8 weeks). I have to look at the positive here, which is the fact that I can begin running again. And at this point, that is all I can ask for.
I'm glad that you are back... my experience with custom orthotics was... well... good and bad. but the "Great News" for me is that I've been w/o custom orthotics for 5 years and running w/o inserts of any type about 50% of the time.
ReplyDeleteI agree about your thoughts on custom orthotics - I don't think most people need them and they serve as a short term solution to get people back running without ever really solving the problem (typically a muscle imbalance or gait issue). However, most people continue to wear them, since they attribute that to the reason why they are able to run again.
ReplyDeleteI find myself in a bit of a different boat though, which I'll explain in a future post about why I think custom orthotics at this point may be my only solution to keep me running.