Just because I spent the day with my feet up doesn’t mean the time was wasted however. I did hammer out a basic synopsis for this year’s Nano novel. Sorry, but I’m not willing to share it with the world at large just yet. A really cool thing happened over the weekend though. The seed of an idea for my story first came to me more than a month ago, and I kind of kicked it around in my head for a while but parts of it were problematic to me. Then on Saturday evening the thought came to me that one detail of the story should really be different, and the whole idea suddenly made a lot more sense. I know that’s kind of cryptic, and again, I’m sorry I can’t say more right now. Ok, I know how I can explain this better: You know those Sudoku puzzles that are all the rage right now? Right, well you know how you’ll be going along, filling in numbers where you can and it’s a slow a tedious process at times, but eventually you get to a point where once you fill in a certain square, you suddenly can see where the next one goes, and the next, and the next, and they all seem to cascade into place in rapid succession until the puzzle is complete? It’s kind of like that. Those moments are really cool. Electric.
The other thing I did yesterday, whether it was a waste of time, well that’s a matter of opinion. A number of my friends are doing the MySpace thing. Yesterday I finally broke down and got a MySpace profile, and ended up messing around with it for quite a while. I don’t take it too seriously I guess. It’s just for fun. Have a look if you want, post a comment, and I’ll do the same on your space.
I’ve really done a number on myself this time. I’m at home in bed today because I can just barely walk. The damage is totally self-inflicted too. Just because I’ve made a lot of positive changes in my life doesn’t mean I’m necessarily any better at taking care of myself.
For about two years now I’ve had a bone spur in my right heel. It’s sort of like having a pebble inside your shoe, except instead of in your shoe, the pebble is inside your foot, and you can’t get it out. For a long time I felt pain with every step I took, but it had been better for the past several months, especially since I started losing a significant amount of weight. Around last July though, the pain became worse. I figured it was just because I was becoming more active and hoped the pain would eventually subside. Not so.
Last Monday I took a major step, as it were, and joined a gym here in my neighborhood. I meant to write more about that whole experience, but I’ll have to skip it. I’ve gone three times so far, and it’s been going ok. Yesterday though, I guess I pushed it too far. I ran kind of hard on the treadmill and must have just shredded the tissue in my foot. The whole time I was doing it, I knew it was going to cost me, but I did it anyway. Sound like a familiar pattern?
It’s a real problem because the most important long-term solution to this problem is exercising and losing weight, but the repetitive stress of walking or running puts me in a lot of pain, but to lose weight I have to exercise, but exercising is painful, and so on. It’s a perfect little catch 22. Of course, there are exercises one can do that don’t put as much stress on the feet. I don’t like doing any of those exercises, but I’m just going to have to put my best foot forward and give them a shot.
Seriously, I’m in a lot of pain today, so I’m hanging out at home, staying off my feet and taking it easy. I think I’m going to go back through some old entries and add some tags since that feature has now become available. If I get very bored, which at this point I’d say is highly likely, I may post again on some additional stuff I’ve been thinking about, including some thoughts about my possible 2006 Nanowrimo project.
Labels: bone spur, heel pain, injury, plantar fasciitis
