My Dumb Foot

Back in June, my foot started hurting me.  It hurt for about a week but I just thought it was a tight achilles.  On Sat. the 9th, I did the Race for the Cure with Lexi.  (Full report over on our Tardy Rooster blog.) After that race, it hurt a lot and swelled on up and I had to put ice on it.  On Sunday, I thought I could run 5 miles with Dave.  Which I did. But every step sent a shooting pain through my heel.  On Monday, I tried to run but didn't even make it down our street.  I decided to rest and give it 3 days to heal and if it wasn't better by Friday I would call ORA.  I hate going to the dr.  I'm always afraid it's going to be nothing and I'm going to look like an idiot so I just don't go.  But by Friday, it wasn't better.  So I called ORA and I got in that very day to see Dr. Ellis. I was very excited about that because we had seen her when we went in for Zach's knees and she really knows her stuff. 
The first thing she did was order x-rays which were, of course, normal.  She said she thought it was an inflamed bursa. Told me one to two weeks of rest should cure it.  So I said, "Ummm...I'm signed up for a race in two weeks."  She said, "Not gonna lie to ya, if you want to do the race and deal with a little pain, you aren't going to make it worse."  Good to know.  Because I really wanted to do my adventure race with Dave!
On the day before the race, now four weeks in, I called ORA to schedule another appt. since it was still bothering me.  I didn't want to go that day though.  Why go back when I was planning on racing the next day?  I scheduled it for monday.  lol 
On monday, she told me the next step was MRI, which of course I didn't want to do-too expensive.  So we gave me another week and made it for the next tuesday.  Just in case it magically got better over the weekend.
So I had the MRI on tuesday and had an appt. with the dr. on thursday.  On wednesday, she called me to say I had a calcaneal stress fracture.  I was thinking Yay!  At least it's something.  And then I thought, Crap!  I have a stress fracture:(  The treatment, I was told, was a boot (borrowed from Dave's mom) which I had been (sort of) wearing the week before.  So I went home and put it on:) 

The next day, Dave and I went to see Dr. Ellis and she showed us the MRI pictures.  Most often, these fractures are vertical in nature, straight down through the bone.  Mine was diagonal- starting at the back of heel and going down through the calcaneus.  (Which, by the way, was the exact presentation of my pain.  Amazing how that works.) When we got in the car, Dave was like You can't even have a NORMAL stress fracture!  I know, right? She said I could wear a boot and walk normally, unless it hurt to walk.  And it did.  So she said I had to use crutches and be non-weight bearing for a week.  Bummer.  Back to Sue's house to get the darn crutches. 

That was bad enough, but we were leaving the next day to spend a week with my sister Laura, on her farm.  I was utterly useless.  She was very gracious about the whole deal but it would have been better if we could have done some more fun activites. 

After a week of the crutches I was over them.  I quit using them.  Thankfully, it no longer hurt to walk.

I was really wanting to run but could only bike.  Finally, on August 17th, Dr. Ellis gave me the 'all clear'.  I needed to walk normally without the boot for one week.  If that didn't hurt, I was clear to run!  Yay!  Oh running, how I missed you!  Actually, I love the feeling when I'm done running.  Not the idea of actually doing the running:)

I haven't had any pain and have been training for The Color Run in October.  I'm good to go!
Side note: the swelling on the outside of my foot still hasn't gone away.  Don't know if it ever will?