Don't Wear Cheap Shoes in Disney

I'm now the proud owner and wearer of a walking cast boot. I'm up to my knee is stylishness. :) It all started in Disney back in January.

Starting the 3rd day in Disney I noticed my big toe was feeling funny. During our 4th day I was walking a little funny, bearing some of my weight on the outer portion of my foot a bit. By the end of the 4th day the entire ball of my foot was swollen and extremely tender. The morning of our 5th, and last day, it hurt so bad I could hardly walk. I thought I would just tough it out, but just the walk to the car from our room was enough to just about put me in tears and I was slower than the oldest person I know. We went to an urgent care and the doctor pronounced it gout before even touching my toe and by selectively hearing my description. I left feeling just as frustrated and that he had it wrong, but he gave me a fracture shoe to help keep my foot sturdy, I couldn't bend my toe, so at least that helped. After the walk across the parking lot at Hollywood Studios we decided to rent me a wheelchair. I was miserably slow and still in a lot of pain. So, I got to ride around in a wheelchair with Maddux on my lap all day. :) Fortunately the next day we were driving home so I got to rest it up.

After only a few more days it was almost back to normal, I just had a very tender spot at the base of my big toe joint. I was talking to my parents (nurse and anesthetist) about the diagnosis of gout and doing some googling we all decided that gout wasn't right. But the pain went away and I knew I had a my yearly physical coming up so I didn't pursue anything else.

Fast forward to last weekend... my toe started getting tender again and I was starting to shift my weight off the toe. So I got into my doc last Monday. They took x-rays and saw calcifications around the sesamoid bones that are under the base of the big toe joint. He said it was most definitely NOT gout, and he's not sure why that doctor would even begin to diagnosis it as that. It was out of his realm though to do anything or to diagnosis what the exact problem was, but knew something was going on that wasn't right. He referred me to Carmel Foot Specialists. Tuesday and Wednesday I could barely walk and my foot was all swollen again. Then it started getting better and was back to just one tender spot that didn't affect walking.

Today I went to the specialist. He saw my xrays from last week and pushed and prodded around my toe. I have a very irritated nerve and lots of swelling even though I don't notice it. He took more xrays in greater detail of the problem area. Turns out I have a stress fracture of the foot bone that goes to the big toe. He said it's a lot like a windshield. You get a small crack, but slowly, over time, the crack keeps growing until it goes all the way across. So in Disney it fractured and stopped seemingly getting better. Then last weekend that fracture grew a bit causing the pain again. If I ignore it it will keep growing until the bone breaks completely at which point I would need surgery to fix it.

But it should heal relatively quickly if I don't use it. So I get to wear a beautiful walking cast for the next 2 weeks.

I go back to the doctor then and hopefully it will have healed by then and I'll be done. If not, I might have to wear the boot longer. Such fun, especially while I'm trying to declutter the house and pack up extra stuff.