Plantar Faschitis And Me.

 I started physical therapy a couple of weeks ago, as I've been saying for the past couple of months my plantar faschitis continued to plague me, despite keeping off it, cortisone shots, a night brace, ice - it's very frustrating because you keep thinking it will just go away one day. And it doesn't. So my podiatrist signed me up for PT. I was a little skeptical I must say - what were they going to do that I wasn't doing? My first day was an evaluation, my therapist has a student with him so that meant I had to do things a few times until the student figured out what I was doing.  So I dutifully trotted up and down the therapy room while they  stared and whispered, it was like wearing high water pants to school and walking down the hall past the Popular Kids. SO they came up with a game plan and it involves me doing lots of stuff with my injured foot. The most surprising is that I'm to stress it all day with a specific exercise - instead of making it more painful by staying off it, exercising it in this manner actually builds it up. This is based on a model by an orthopedic surgeon who tore his Achilles tendon. They wouldn't operate unless it was  completely torn so he spent all day stressing it in an effort to blow it out and get the surgery. It had the opposite effect and he actually repaired it. In other words it was a case of a Doctor Actually Curing Himself.  Strange but true, so when Pearl is outside scoping out the squirrels I'm on the bottom step of the deck bouncing on one leg. Today my foot is taped to keep it from swinging in, a habit I've developed in an effort to make walking a little less painful.  I have to say my one foot is accumulating quite a few things - but I've reached the point I will do anything to make it feel better. I'm tired of being afraid of taking that first few steps in the morning because the pain will send me into the stratosphere, not being able to hike or even walk to the mailbox and back without paying for it later.  And the expense is a bit daunting, my insurance has a huge copay, at first it was $40 a session for the physical therapy - that's $120 a week in co-pays! Thank you Mr. Obama for your improvements in health care - but after threatening to cancel my therapy altogether the billing lady told me they would accept $20 a visit, not great, but do-able.  Of course that's also a sign of the times, they would rather negotiate the co-pay then lose the patient, I'm glad we're still in a position that we can afford to do that. But I'll be glad when I can go back to hiking, my faithful Chaser Of Chipmunks at my side, because being limited like this sucks.