One More Obstacle

Shortly after we moved here and I started going barefoot some ridiculously large percentage of the time, I began having occasional foot pain. At the time, I shrugged it off along with a lot of other pains encountered while cleaning, treating it with ibuprofen when necessary. When you want to keep floors clean of sand and your eyesight isn’t all that great (even with contact lenses and good lighting), it’s very useful to be barefoot when you clean them. Besides, this is Florida, it’s usually hot, and who wants the constriction of shoes?

During the summer, we have had the Bed & Breakfast shut down for conservation purposes. After last summer, with the very minimum number of occasional paying guests and their desire to have the two “best” guest rooms in this old house (with windows on three sides and only one air conditioning vent) chilled to the comfy low 70’s, we decided that maybe it would be more cost effective to close off the upstairs entirely and the two of us live downstairs with higher thermostat settings. Sure enough, where last summer’s electric bills approached $500 monthly, this summer’s bills have been under $200. So we are probably saving more money than we would have taken in, had we remained “fully open” all summer.

However, there is another hidden cost of being closed for business (other than the fact that we are both bored out of our minds). When I am not having to do daily, constant aerobic house cleaning, my weight tends to, um, get out of control. Combine with that the fact that I was off my thyroid meds for several months (I was hoping to get health insurance on a short-lived job so I could see a “real” doctor, as opposed to the county health clinic where us po’ folk go) and the 10-plus additional pounds on the scale make perfect sense. I’m not happy about them, but they do make sense.

In the absence of a bunch of housecleaning to keep me active, I had started once again walking daily on the treadmill while watching recorded episodes of Dr. Phil. Between the untimely death of our prior DVR, losing many of my beloved saved shows, and the summer rerun season, it was hard enough to get motivated to walk daily, and when I did get motivated, perhaps I walked overenthusiastically to “make up for” the days I hadn’t. But during the past week or so, after one particularly enthusiastic walking session, the foot pain has become a real hindrance to my spending any more time than necessary on my feet.

So off I went to the other “po’ folks doctor” besides the county clinic – the internet – for a diagnosis. It’s called “Metatarsalgia” and is more commonly known as “pain in the ball of the foot”. It is in fact aggravated by the following: wearing improper footwear (these New Balance are ones I bought in 2009 before leaving St. Louis so admittedly they have a few miles on them); fast walking or any activity causing impact on the foot; going barefoot; and last but not least, being over “a healthy weight”. Well, yeah, the last time I was by anyone’s definition a “healthy weight” was either briefly in 2003, or back in late 80’s, depending on your definition of “healthy weight”. That was the whole reason I was on the treadmill!

This morning I was indulging in my current favorite sport, shuffleboard, which can usually be played without creating or aggravating physical injury. And for the second time, I, by far the youngest person in the shuffleboard club, was the exception to that rule (the prior time was when my back flared up and I had to stop playing a few weeks ago). How embarrassing is that? I made it all the way through the first two matches without any pain, and was actually playing well. Third match, not so lucky, and it distracted me enough that my game was off more than usual. But I tried to be a good sport and not call attention to my “issue”. On the way out of the shuffleboard courts to the car, however, Stu asked me “do you want to stop somewhere and see if you can get something for your foot?” I guess I can no longer call him Mr. Oblivious because he, on a completely different court on the other side, had observed my limping slightly – that must be love or something.

We went to CVS and I purchased a pair of Dr. Scholl inserts for my shoes of choice. Since they already contained some drug store insole inserts for foot pain, I had to tape them to the inserts already there since they wouldn’t stick any other way. But hopefully they will prevent pain during shuffleboard. If I have to give up my shuffleboard someone might very well have to put me out of my (their) misery because it’s the one thing I can look forward to at least twice a week.

It does, however, look like for the time being at least, my “fitness walking” days are over. And this is truly a shame, because it is the one free aerobic exercise available to me, the chronically overweight woman. So here I am, no job, no health insurance, no income, overweight, and now no fitness walking. I now have one more obstacle between me and my ideal life. But those among us who appreciate clichés will undoubtedly snap back something like “God never gives us more than we can handle” or “When God closes a door, he opens a window”.

With that in mind, my next plan is to get very creative about a very structured food plan for myself and possibly Stu (who will admit that he too could stand to lose some weight). Without spending actual money to re-join (for the fourth time) Weight Watchers, I am going to have to start measuring and counting calories again, which I dread but I also know I must do. At this point, especially without regular doctor visits, I know that keeping my weight as low as possible is literally a matter of my life or death. Will I succeed, or will I again go from my current 180 pounds back to the treacherous 205 that I maintained during my most stressful years, working full time and caring for family? That depends on my willpower, my creativity, staying out of debilitating mental depression, and the grace of God. Stay tuned.