Birthday and beach day good, foot pain bad

I had a great pre birthday, birthday and post birthday followed by a bad foot day. The bad day turned into more. Something re-activated the dreaded plantar fasciitis, making me a bore to anyone who hasn't suffered from it. One of my tennis buddies had it so badly that she had to skip tennis for a while and go to physical therapy. In between games on the court, she showed me some of her stretches. I feel like I know them all...I actually threw out my boot because I was done with it. The moral might be that even if you have a dumpster in your driveway, never throw anything out.

I have been going to the chiropractor and have contacted my orthotics guy, Ken Holt, because I wonder if it's just a matter of getting new orthotics.

A friend said he couldn't keep track of my birthdays, and I understood. One original birthday and four re-birthdays. 

It was great to have the three kids and one cute little boy at my house for the pre-birthday. We ate outside and were going to stay outside (because, COVID) but Callen wanted to go in. We thought of not doing it but all of a sudden we were all inside. We spaced out and that was a while ago already so I figure it was OK. I loved seeing him at my mother's piano next to one of her paintings.

On the real birthday, I played tennis and went out to eat with Boyfriend, for the first time. People said that 30Boltwood, in Amherst, does a good job, and they were right. 

A couple of days later, I got to go back to the Fairfield Beach Club, where I had great success in getting Callen's little shoes on him while Ben was busy with Nell. Callen had eaten a Spiderman pop and got more on himself than in his mouth. I suggested we go wash up. He took my hand and we headed off. That little hand in mine was worth the two-hour drive. I thought we were going to a certain bathroom but he led me to another room with a big sink in it. I picked him up and turned on the water, which he seemed to be trying to catch in his hands. 

This of course makes me think of doing the same thing with my little kids.

At the end of the day I enjoyed a swim in the calm Long Island Sound. I miss seeing the ocean at Cape Cod, but I think it was Katie who pointed out to me that since I'm not allowed in the ocean, this is a good fit for me. Ben pointed out that there were also no sharks.

If you don't care about feet, you can stop here.

 On top of that, my neuropathy, which has been pretty tame, has gone on and off crazy. The other night, I felt like my feet were electrified. I don't post too much in FB groups such as Our Neuropathy Friends, because everyone is going to have a different opinion. But if a lot of people have the same opinion, for example on a kind of CBD that is effective, I might be interested. That group is recognized by The Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, by the way, 

Hello! I haven't posted in a while because I've been doing OK, meaning, a low buzz in my feet but not that bad. 900 mgs of gabapentin twice a day, or an extra 300 if I want. I don't know what happened. Maybe it's the rain that is coming. My feet got totally electrified, on top of a return of plantar fasciitis. A while back I tried CBD, THC and a combination and was never that happy with the results so I stopped. I was just staring at some chocolate that is 1-1 and wondering if I should take a nibble but I didn't. CBD doesn't really do anything and THC makes me a little stoned, even if I take a little/ I guess it works to take your mind off the neuropathy but I've kind of been there done that with that feeling. As you all know it is very upsetting. I took 5 mgs of oxycodone before. Now it has worn off. Ibuprofen has a bad effect on my kidneys and Tylenol of course is bad for the liver. I put CBD cream on my feet and that helps a little. I guess my question is whether people have had good luck with CBD. The kind I have now is made by Good Body Products in Vermont, for what that's worth.

Mostly it was good to get a little support.

"People that dont deal with this problem have no idea of how debilitating and relentless it is," one said.

Mostly they are doing the same as I am, rubbing different things in their feet. One said he had it so bad that he had to stop work and apply for Social Security Disability.

Someone said capsaicin in a gel, but I put that on my toe once when I had problems and it burned my skin. 

But then after a string of bad foot days I had one of my best tennis days ever. So in conclusion it's hard to figure.

Feet can do the darndest things

I was thinking while walking past a bush in bloom this morning that the best way to keep sane in the face of COVID-19 is to keep from looking too far into the future in much the same way that I tried to frame my outlook during leukemia treatment.

You have to pull your gaze back from the uncertain future to keep from  keep getting overwhelmed. Or at least that's what I tried to do. In the hospital I remember saying to a doctor, or maybe it was a nurse, that I was trying to take it one day at a time. I remember the person saying to even take it one breath at a time. I don't know about that, but I do know that if I get carried away with the what-ifs, I try to pull myself back in.

I've also been thinking about my feet, the good and the bad.

They have been serving me well, carrying me around town on longer runs. I heard somewhere that it's good for the brain to vary your route, so I've been changing it up a little. To get a break from the intensity of MSNBC, I've been watching a little bit of The Today Show, which usually has at least a few bright spots. The other day they were talking about even changing up little things, such as using the opposite hand to brush your hair or your teeth.

I don't think my feet can take it running every day. But I'm glad that while playing so much tennis in The Before Times I at least tried to run once a week so I wouldn't lose it in case I wanted to do more. Now, with no tennis, running beckoned. It's not as easy as when I used to go out without even thinking about it. I have to push myself out. But once I get going, I'm glad for it. The most I've gone is six miles, but it's not any less than what I used to do. I am of course slower. Five to six miles is enough for me to get those wonderful endorphins. With a dog walk in the morning and near the end of the day, I've gotten up to seven or almost nine miles on some days.

Can you tell which are the new ones?

The problem with my feet is, 1) I felt a twinge in my heel and realized I better take care to do the things I know I need to do to keep plantar fasciitis at bay. These include stretching, rolling my foot on a bottle or ball, and, something that's hard for me to do, getting my knuckles into my calves to try to get them to be less tight. (I needed the chiropractor for that.) I have some roller things somewhere in the back of a closet, where they are not too useful.

I realized that I hadn't gotten new running shoes in a long time, so I went online and found the same model and brand. Of course the ones on the market were the next model up. You hear people saying to buy two pairs of the same shoe if you like them. I don't have the foresight. I looked around and found what I wanted, Brooks Cascadia 13. They are a trail running shoe but good for me because they are very neutral and work well with my orthotics. The ones widely available on the market are up model (14) but since I couldn't try them on I wanted to stick with what I had. I found them at Skirack, a little store in Burlington, Vt.

 As for problem number two, it's the unpredictability of the neuropathy in my feet. One day last week (I think it was before a storm) it got so painful that I could have cried. It gets to the point of feeling like you are walking, or running, on shards of glass, or that an electric current is going through your feet. I have CBD cream and drops that might help a little. I gave up on the THC and the TCH/CBD combo because I didn't like what even a small amount did to my head. A friend said I could be a weather predictor, because it seems to be related. Then they calm down and it diminishes to a low-grade buzzing feeling. On some days they are numb. I guess that isn't bad for running, because it's an extra layer of cushioning.

I asked the neurologist in Boston about trying a little more gabapentin at night. I don't take a very high dose. He said to go ahead and try adding an extra 300 milligrams at night. I asked him to change the prescription so I wouldn't run out. He changed it without adding a dose. In other words, he took one away in the morning and added it to the evening. He seems to have disappeared. I called his office three times, and Melissa sent him an email, because he was going to give me a referral to somebody I need for an intestinal problem that he said could be related to my neuropathy.

As I wrote in this post about dermatology, it is very hard to find a doctor for a non COVID-19 problem. At least it is not life-threatening, and so I am trying to keep that in perspective.

Running – or sloshing – in the rain for a good cause

With Amy Willard before the run

According to a post on the the Hot Chocolate Run's Facebook page, it was apparently the first rainy Hot Chocolate Run in the event's 15th year history.

In the morning, a friend pointed out that I didn't have to go. I had already raised the money, after all.

I said, in effect, that if everyone thought that way, nobody would be there. (And think of all that hot chocolate going to waste.)

When I ran the Hartford Half Marathon in the fall of 2002 it was on another rainy day. I felt a little under the weather. I remember my mother telling me not to go. I went anyway. At the time, leukemia might have been brewing. But I felt pretty good, except for feeling silly when my friend Mike and I got there and got soaked while waiting, while the more knowledgeable runners had made makeshift ponchos out of garbage bags that they discarded when the race began.

I didn't feel so good this year. And it was only a 5-K.

Contrary to last year, when I trained for the Hot Chocolate Run so that I would feel OK on the hills, and then wrote about it for Women's Running, I didn't train this year. 

I wasn't even planning on going, but when I told Marianne Winters,  the executive director of Safe Passage, that I wasn't in shape, she said that it didn't matter because the Fun Run, was, well, fun. In the old days I would have signed up for the race with the "real runners," but that was then, and this is now. 

I know Marianne through tennis, and it was over snacks at a tennis match that we had talked about my participating. It was as a way of supporting her great work that I did my first Hot Chocolate Run with other tennis teammates three years ago.

And then there was one.

Amy, from that original group, was running this year. We agreed to meet before. It was fun to go together. She has a great smile that ... cliché alert...brightened the day.

Due to the cold and rain, it was difficult to figure out to wear. I put in contacts that I'm trying out. The idea was to keep from having rain pour onto my glasses. I put on a Gore-tex jacket to keep my top dry, and as for my legs, I figured they would get soaked anyway so I just wore the leggings that I wear to tennis. Then for headgear, the choice was between keeping my head warm with the red hat that you get for raising at least $150, or wearing a baseball hat and keeping the rain out of my eyes. 

Choosing the warm hat may not have been the best idea. The rain was coming down so hard that I was afraid the contacts would wash out of my eyes. Then my vision would be even worse than it was in rain-soaked contacts.

At least as an upgrade from the garbage bags of yore, volunteers had handed out ponchos for us to wear while we waited. 

We also went into a warm tent where trainers from Cooley Dickinson Hospital were rolling out runners' legs with a stick that is a torture device for tight muscles. I got mine done because just on time for the run, my plantar fasciitis decided to act up. This irked me no end. I have a couple of the sticks at home. I guess I should have been torturing my calves for maintenance, but, alas, it's hard to get motivated when there are so many other things to think about. In any case, it helped a little.

As I was going up the hills, I remembered why I had decided to run on some hills before last year's run. I've been doing intermittent three-mile runs but they are mostly flat.

I leaned into the first hill. Then my back cramped, and after a while, I had trouble standing up straight. I thought maybe I should switch to a walk for a while. Other people were doing it. When I tried to switch gears, I wobbled a little. It was easier to run, albeit slowly, that to walk, because it gave me better forward momentum. A woman asked if I needed assistance. I thanked her and said I didn't. We trotted alongside each other for a bit. That took my mind off being uncomfortable...for a few minutes.

By the time the hills at Smith College came, near the end, I was feeling a little bit screwed. I was bent over. I tried to coax myself into standing up straight. I told myself, "Pretend you're walking the dog!" Down the home stretch, I was going slowly enough to have a conversation with two police officers near the Academy of Music. I said I couldn't stand up straight. They asked if I needed help. I said I just wanted sympathy. They laughed.

Obviously I made it. Hot chocolate with marshmallows never tasted so good. I was soaked and cold But so was everyone else. 

I got a new mug. 

If you contributed to my fundraising page, thank you!

I love how the website is set up so you can see where the money goes, for example, a $30 donation can help provide resources, support and hope for a survivor calling the 24-hour hotline; $60 can help support a survivor's first counseling session, and so on.

The event broke records and raised $628,527.

I don't seem to be any worse for the wear except for not being happy about my heel.

Mysterious rash on face, marvelous trip to US Open

With Donna and Roger at the US Open

When I heard while watching Kaia Kanepi play at the US Open that she had battled plantar fasciitis in both feet – and almost quit tennis because of that and the debilitating Epstein-Barr virus – I could totally sympathize with the plantar fasciitis part. (She lost to Serena Williams in the Round of 16.)

My friends said I complained more about the heel pain than I ever did about leukemia. 

Actually I don't think I complained about cancer at all. That's because I expected it to be bad. The heel pain drove me crazy because I couldn't understand how an area the size of a quarter could be so debilitating. During one bout I skipped all exercise for about six months. Even walking to the end of the driveway, I felt like I was walking on crushed glass.

Now something new is driving me crazy. It's a combination of blisters and rash on and around my lips. Sometimes it hurts a lot, or stings, and other times it's incredibly itchy. I sent photos to my health care team. One doctor said it could be an allergy. Another said it could be, in his shorthand that took me a minute to figure out, HSV, or herpes simplex virus, otherwise known as cold sores, aka HSV1.

One possibility is that the herpes simplex virus broke out because they let me decrease the dosage on the Valtrex that I take as a preventative, because I'm on prednisone, from 1,000 mgs twice a day to 500. Dr. Marty said to in an email to increase the dose, so I did. 

I thought maybe the chemotherapy cream, Efudex, that I'm applying to select spots, had gotten onto my skin and irritated it. But through my googling I have learned that the cold sore can spread from your lip to other areas of your skin. So I figured it probably wasn't some stray Efudex. 

A friend at tennis said it looks like sun poisoning. She suggested Aquafor. It feels good to have something moist on it, but I don't know what it's doing. The pharmacist said to put aloe vera gel on. I said it would burn. He said not if it's pure. He sold me some. It burned. 

I came upon a story about shingles and decided that's what I have.

The pharmacist said stress brings the cold sores out and I should go home and rest.

What, me stressed?

I tried unsuccessfully to remember if a correlation existed between the outbreak and the outburst on the tennis court.

WHAT DIDN"T CAUSE ME STRESS was my fifth annual bus trip with Donna to the US Open Friday. It strikes me as funny that when I lived nearby, I never went. But as soon as I went on the bus from the Enfield Tennis Club, I was hooked. 

In my story about how tennis helped me recover from leukemia, I wrote about what the trip means to me.

Rafael Nadal, a speck

We've had fun every year, but the first year was more haphazard because we didn't know where to go. Now, we have a plan. It being USTA Membership Appreciation Day, we went to the USTA booth first to pick up our gift. It was a $10 gift card and a nice baseball cap with ... drum roll ... USTA member on it. 

Then we went to an outside court to watch doubles, sitting so close that you could see and hear how hard they hit it. This is the fun of going that I didn't understand when I lived so close but never went. 

The heat had broken. It was slightly cloudy, with a little rain here and there. Perfect weather for it.

When we were talking around, Donna said, excitedly, "I see Roger Federer!"

I jumped.

There he was, on a wall. A woman took a photo for us. 

We checked out the new Armstrong stadium and went to our nosebleed seats in Ashe – part of the bus trip package – to watch Nadal play the young Russian prospect, Karen Khachanov.  We went down further than our assigned seats, but due to the full stadium, they wouldn't let us sit in a lower section. We were close enough, though. Also, we got to see the new roof close.

I got a kick out of emailing my friend Francisco Marty, the infectious disease specialist at Dana-Farber, and getting a response in less than a minute. I told him about the rash and asked about increasing the Valtrex, and he wrote back, to increase, and also, "take a selfie with Nadal."

I wrote back that Nadal was too far.

He responded, "Tell him come up to you."

He always made me smile, even when I was deathly ill, and he had made me smile again.

Though we wanted to stay to the finish, we also wanted to see more action, so we left before the end. Out in the plaza, a crowd had gathered to watch the gripping finish on the big screen. We joined them. The world may be falling apart, but we shared this communal moment with strangers who cared only about a tennis match. (Nadal won in four sets.)

The bus left at 7:30, an hour later than previously. Our trek to the bus (it's a long walk) was much calmer than our first year when I wasn't feeling well. Our friend Deb Doner was leading the way, imploring Donna to get me to go faster, and to maybe even put me in a cart. Donna said she was doing the best she could but she couldn't pick me up! When we finally got to the bus, what happened next wasn't pretty.

US Open signature drink

That year it was scorching hot. I didn't drink enough water. I thought I only had one, but Donna says I had two of the signature Honey Deuce cocktails with Grey Goose vodka in a (plastic) glass with all the names of all the Open champions on it.

This year I only had one, and I wasn't sick, unless you count whatever is going on on my face. We got back to the bus early...and waited almost half an hour for two stragglers. It ended up being a long day. But I would do it again.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I have been taking Tylenol, Advil, and occasionally a little oxycodone when the pain around my lips reaches a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. Dr. Lin (Jennifer) said via email to apply 2.5 percent cortisone and Vaseline. She also said to stay out of the sun. I don't hit the Ativan much, but I took a little when I realized I wasn't breathing. (Well, I was breathing, of course, but not the right way.)

    

We went to a party. I tried, unsuccessfully, I'm afraid, to keep my hands off my face. The whatever-it-is was itching like crazy. At home, I took two Benadryl. The next morning I felt hung over.

I skipped George's clinic at the Canoe Club yesterday. Meghan's yin yoga at the Hampshire Y seemed like a better thing to do. It is the perfect combination of movement and stillness. Hearing her voice brings me back to Costa Rica. 

On the way home, I stopped at the Canoe Club. I sat under the umbrella and talked to George and the players who had just finished. I told him about the "I hate you" comment. He said he had overheard an exchange between my antagonist and another player. The other person had said, "That's uncalled for."

So this person is taking something out on others, and not just on me.

George said it's a long summer. It's not the first time that by the end of it, words can fly like tennis balls.

Today was the first day of an indoor contract at the Bay Road Tennis Club. It's split among six players. I thought of getting a sub, but I didn't want to do it on the first day, and I thought that it would feel good to run around. I figured while pain in my feet stopped me from playing, there was no reason that pain in my face should do it.

They are nice ladies and excellent players who don't take themselves too seriously. 

Will give a report in another post on the what is the reason for my rash, and what I'm going to do about it.

Feet (or rather heel) don't fail me now

Tanglewood on a beautiful day 

After fear of relapse and fear of death, the thing I fear most is return of the dreaded heel pain, plantar fasciitis.

It practically crippled me for months that I had it years ago, and it was a pain to get rid of, cured finally by the soft orthotics that I got from physical therapist Ken Holt out in Montague. I complained bitterly (a favorite word of my father's) about it, while not complaining at all about leukemia. So the twinges that I have had lately have set off alarm bells. I do not want to go back to the period when I couldn't even walk down my driveway without piercing pain.

It might have started from walking barefoot more than I used to; a friend doesn't allow shoes in the house, and I walked barefoot until I could find the appropriate footwear to put on in place of the slippers offered. The slippers were almost the same as going barefoot because they were flat, plus, they were ugly! I repurposed a pair of old sandals by cleaning them. Opinion varies on whether going barefoot is good or bad for plantar fasciitis; in my case it is bed because I need the support.

Then I exacerbated it on an otherwise lovely day at Tanglewood with the Boston University Alumni Association and guests last week. (Some people were confused by my FB posting saying I was with the BU group because they thought I went to Vassar. I got my undergrad from Vassar and my master's in journalism from BU.) I have been to Tanglewood many times but never took an official walking tour like I did last week. Learning about the history was interesting on the beautiful day, but I did it in shoes not made for walking. Hence by the end of the day my feet really killed.

It didn't detract from enjoying the music while sitting in the Shed, a totally different experience from sitting on the lawn, on the day of Yo Yo Ma's "Little Carlito" entreaty. Such a pleasure to hear a star speak like a "real" person, even giving the number of the Stockbridge and Lenox police departments should anyone find the conductor's lost dog. If you read this story, you will discover the happy denouement.

I agree with my friend Ken Ross, who said of Yo Yo Ma in his review on Masslive, "One thing I will say about Ma that really makes him stand out - he always looks so happy to be performing on stage. Some artists might look like tortured souls. In contrast, Ma often has a genuine smile on his face when he's playing. And today was no exception. Other things I noticed about Ma today during his performance of Schumann's Cello Concerto - his effortless transitions, his crystal clear tone, his lighter-than-air touch and his superb sense of rhythm."

Meanwhile, back to my feet...I  stretched and iced a lot during the week and began to feel reassured that the twinges would stay at just that. Though you never can be sure because it can sneak up on you.

Race volunteer

On Friday I was a volunteer at the T-shirt handout for the Bridge of Flowers 10-K in Shelburne Falls, held on Saturday. I was with others from Northampton's Cancer Connection, which, among other non-profits, benefits from the proceeds. We worked at the Shelburne-Buckland Elementary School for a couple of hours, with a break for a spaghetti supper and ice cream. When chatting with some of the runners while in line, I told them I was a runner who wasn't running...much. I told them I was playing a lot of tennis and the running was taking a back seat. Still, I had a twinge of envy as I gave out the T-shirts.

Afterwards, I drove to the Bridge of Flowers, walked across and back, and lingered for a while. In the twilight, it was so beautiful that it was hard to leave.

Bridge of Flowers at dusk

Yesterday when I woke up early enough to go for a run and with no tennis planned, I said to myself that if I was still a real runner and not a so-called one, I would take advantage of the cooler morning to go out and do it. With tennis usually taking precedence, I last ran about a week and a half ago.

So I laced up and stretched and out I went. My mind was its usual chatterbox, but by the time I got into it a little, it had quieted down. I got a taste of why I like it so much as I got into a little bit of a groove. I tried my best to pick it up a little between certain markers and felt pretty good.

When I checked my mileage on my phone after, I was surprised to see that I had gone 3.7 miles. Nothing hurt. Still, today, I got a few more twinges. I better pay attention to them. In many ways when you get to a certain age, running is not good for the body. But it is definitely good for the soul.

Stretching and slogging before Saint Patrick's Race

Doing a plantar fasciitis stretch at Kraft Family Blood Donor Center

Mark Zuckerberg was kind enough to send me a memory from this time of year in 2012 when I wrote that my training for the Saint Patrick's Race was going well – I had run six miles with no problem – but I was worried about the twinges of plantar fasciitis.

Well something is the same: The worry about plantar fasciitis. I think if you counted the number of times over the course of this blog that I mentioned concern about the dreaded heel pain, it might equal or exceed the number of times I expressed worry about leukemia.

At ECP last Wednesday, a doctor and a couple of nurses were all sharing their experiences with and cures for plantar fasciitis. One of the nurses demonstrated how her doctor told her to stretch, and when I got out of the bed I tried it for myself.

A new-to-me resident is overseeing me because I went to a different time slot, 4 p.m. instead of 3. My nurse, Esther, told the doctor that she never saw anyone with graft-vs-host as active as I am. I told her that I still had ripples in my skin and the feeling of a band around my stomach, but the procedure has softened my skin, lessened the swelling in my hands, and important or not depending on your point of view, helped my tennis game.

I'm still planning on doing the race, but the weather has not been conducive to running, and I can't say as I could five years ago that I have run six miles. I did five, so slowly I'm not even sure you could call it running.

Saturday I went to spinning, and on Sunday I ran three miles. I would have gone today but I didn't because of the snowstorm, during which my only activity was going out into the driveway with Maddie. A huge black Lab, about as big as our dog Winnie, bounded into the driveway while her owner shouted from across the street. Maddie seemed to be intimidated because she lay down in a totally submissive position.

I'm not sure when the roads will be cleared enough to get in a good run. I hope I can do it at least once. I would like to not be the very last person to finish. As previously stated, I have gotten incredibly slow.

The other night I dreamt that I was on a dance floor, shimmying up and down. Joe was off to the side watching, and I wanted to show him how I could go all the way down and back up without falling. Up and down. Down and up. It was easy! (When Joe was living here he never wanted me to crouch down on the floor to kiss him goodnight if he was sitting on the floor in front of the TV: He thought I wouldn't be able to get up.)

Interestingly at a tennis clinic the next day, George said I was doing my best forehand slices by bending my knees and leaning over closer to the ground than during a regular swing. So in my dream I was sort of modeling the movement.

Falling in love with a new guy, or, the time I lost and found my sandals

Mark and Bernice Fournier

I knew I was in love the minute he touched my right big toe and ran his hand down the sole of my foot and knew exactly what I needed.

I need help with my LEFT foot due to the way it is falling, causing my ankle to list outward, thereby putting pressure on my RIGHT foot thereby causing the past plantar fasciitis and current big toe pain.

All this time I have had an orthotic that corrects the right foot more than the left, so...

I had to wait about a month to get into Fournier Foot Care Center in Northampton. Owner Mark Fournier, who has been making orthopedic foot products for 32 years, is a popular guy. I learned a new word when I saw him yesterday: he is a certified pedorthist. 

He knows and appreciates the work of Ken Holt, the physical therapist who (knock wood) fixed my plantar fasciitis, but he said that as a pedorthist he sees things a little differently, and he could see right away that my left foot needed a different orthotic to straighten out my ankle.

This might not seem such a big deal except that I have wanted to keep running, even just a little, but most times afterward my big toe hurts, which is not the case when I play tennis because in the former you pound more consistently. I always feel in a better mood after I run and I have missed the endorphin boost. Because, well, don't read if you already have, but running saved my life.

Naot Paris sandals

The reason I went to see him is that I THOUGHT I had lost my Naot Paris sandals and I THOUGHT that Masoud Hakimzadeh, the now retired owner of Comfort Shoes, had modified their insoles to keep my plantar fasciitis at bay. I looked all over for the sandals and finally ordered a new pair because they are sooooo comfortable. Then I made the appointment to get them adjusted.

Meanwhile, our friend Jane was at my house looking at something on Facebook with me. Since I had ordered them online, an image of the sandals kept chasing me around. I hadn't gotten around to x-ing it out. (Of course you can't make it go away unless you give a good reason, so I put I already own these shoes.)

Jane looked at the sandals and said she had forgotten to tell me they were at her house.

JANE!

She said that when I had come over a few weeks ago to have Jim Bloom take a photo of me in my Hoka One sneakers to run with my story in Womens Running, I had left the sandals there.

I decided to keep both because the old ones were looking the worse for wear.

But it turns out the old ones had the original insoles. Apparently they were so comfortable because I had molded them to my feet through wear. The Comfort Shoes guy had made me orthotics for something. I just don't remember what.

Fournier said he would adjust the new Naot insoles and I could keep the old ones for beach shoes. Then he took my orthotics that I wear in my sneakers and tennis shoes into the next room. He returned in just a few minutes, having adjusted them to correct the leaning on the left. He also made an indent for my toes to take the pressure off of them.

Most importantly, he was the NICEST guy.

His wife, who runs the business with him, interrupted our visit several times due to printer problems she was having and questions from a customer who had come into the store. A sign on the wall said the minimum payment for a visit is $38. But when I asked him how much I owed, he said nothing except for the charge for modifying the Naot insoles, which I'm picking up tomorrow.

I hadn't even said to him my oft-repeated truth: "I complained more about plantar fasciitis than I did about leukemia." So I didn't think he felt sorry for me or anything. I think he was practicing good customer service.

I know that doctors have to try their best to run on time, but I'm still annoyed by the Brigham and Women's endocrinologist, Eva Liu, who said on Wednesday that she wouldn't see me because I was running slightly past the 15-minute grace period. My ride had been late, therefore making me late for my 10:40 a.m. appointment. I called ahead and said I was in the area. The receptionist said it would be up to the discretion of the doctor if I was more than 15 minutes late and she would probably have me rebook because I would be about 10 minutes past that. When I emailed Melissa from the car, she called the doctor and said I had come a long way and I could wait up to four hours because my next appointment wasn't until 3. But she said no, so I cooled my heels until going to my next appointment.

In all my doctor visits, I never encountered anything like that. I might have waited for a long time, but I would have been seen.

I have cried over some things lately. But when I emailed Melissa about the problem, I wrote, "At least I'm not crying."

My bone density test was already on record so we were just asking for a consult on whether I should do anything for my bones because prednisone can be weakening them.

Thanks to a nice doctor in Northampton, I feel good about the prospects for my feet.

I guess my bones will have to wait until we rebook...with another doctor.

Something to whine about

I thought I did something to my toe when playing tennis on the hard courts last week, but when the pain migrated to the top of my foot, I realized it was more than that.

My podiatrist had a cancellation yesterday morning, so I went bright and early. He said it is most likely a stress fracture in the left metatarsal.

He gave me a compression boot and, like the last time I had one for a stress fracture in my leg, it worked quickly to ameliorate the pain. To confirm the cause, I need to go to the hospital tomorrow for an injection of dye, followed three hours later by an x-ray and bone scan.

I will probably have to leave the boot on for five to six weeks, which obviously amounts to that same amount of time without exercise. I asked about swimming, and my doctor said not even to do that because of the pressure it would put on my foot. I can basically lift weights and do some core-strengthening exercises, not my favorite activities.

Katie asked me what makes a stress fracture heal, and I said basically wearing the boot and whining.

When I told Diane about it, she said a friend had recently reported suffering from plantar fasciitis, and Diane, a fellow past sufferer, told her all the remedies we had tried. We laughed about the fact that I complained more bitterly about plantar fasciitis than I did about leukemia. A stress fracture can have the same effect.

It is already taking its toll on Maddie. She keeps looking at me expectantly, as though she thinks we're going for a walk. But it's hard to navigate with the boot on.

I have already planned a few play dates for her.

At least one of us will get some exercise.

It's the little things

When you've been sick and you finally get the big things under control, the little things can be incredibly frustrating.

Of course just because you've been through something major, you don't get a bye from the normal problems. But sometimes you just want to say, "Give me a break already."

I got plantar fasciitis, the inflammation that causes heel pain, after my first stem cell transplant when I had recovered and was running and playing tennis again. I went to the Grand Canyon around this time and while my friends took big hikes, I hobbled along the rim. They said I complained about this more than I complained about leukemia. Anyone who has had plantar fasciitis will know what I mean. It is just infuriating that an area about the size of a quarter can cause so much pain. At one point I couldn't even walk down the driveway to pick up the paper.

I wandered in the podiatry desert for way too long, going to the wrong people, including one podiatrist who gave me cortisone shots that worked only for a little while, who gave me a cumbersome brace to sleep in (which I usually tore off in the middle of the night) and who said, before I finally bolted, that he might slit the bottom of my foot to relieve the tightness that was causing the inflammation.

I finally found the right person, who made soft orthotics in his office and told me what kind of sneaker to buy. I haven't had symptoms in ages. Every now and then I get a twinge, which makes me nervous, but then I double up on my stretching exercises, and so far, so good.

I bring this up because I have a new little something. I hurt the side of my right hand, probably by mis-hitting a ball and straining my hand in the process. Mike taped it for me today at physical therapy, and although it feels better, it is still sore, and I wonder how I will do tomorrow at tennis and how I will do at my first match this weekend. It will be bad news if I can't hold the racquet.

The art of pacing

Having gotten stronger in the quads, I'm finally able to stand up from a lunge in yoga without help from a chair.

That said, it's still difficult for me to balance, and when an instructor leads us through standing poses, I often think, "Not that again," or "Can't we just lie down already?"

The other night, as we did a long standing sequence, I began to wobble and to struggle to stay upright. Erin often says, "Find the ease and comfort in the pose," and I certainly was not doing that. I guess she noticed, and she brought over the chair. I half thought, "Not that chair again," but I was also grateful for the support.

And when we did Warrior Two, she placed my foreword-facing fingertips on the wall and said, "Use it."

The photo is obviously not me. (I wish it was!) It's just an example of Warrior Two...without the wall, but you get the idea.

I'm trying to draw on this as a reminder not to push so hard. This

goes for other things, not just yoga. I imagine many others have a similar issue. Some have the gift of knowing how to pace; others have to learn it. You want so badly to do what you used to do that you can hurt yourself by pushing too hard. I know I've written this before, and I'm sorry to repeat myself, but it's just that I keep remembering and then forgetting.

I guess that's what happened with my feet. The stupid plantar fasciitis came back, and then ankle and knee pain followed, because I didn't lay the groundwork with stretching and strength training.

On a related topic, running, after going through three pairs of running shoes, I think I finally found the model that Ken Holt (who makes my orthotics) wants me to have. I searched for it frantically after my visit with him Wednesday, because I really need to cover a little distance without pain so I can do at least part of the 10-miler that I'm signed up to run in Philadelphia the first weekend of May with Emily and Tami.

I showed off the shoes to Erin and said that I planned to do a combination of running and walking for about five miles.

She just looked at me. I don't know if I read into her look or not, but I said, "OK, maybe three miles." We'll see; I've been on the bike, but it's not the same thing.

The shoes are a New Balance 461, a "neutral" shoe, which, combined with the orthotics, should keep my feet from pronating. I went to about half a dozen stores and searched on line until I finally found them at Kohl's.

Needless to say, they are cheaper than the collection of higher models on my closet floor. Holt wanted a New Balance below the 600 series; most everyone sells the higher models (like the New Balance 1061s that I had) with "bells and whistles" such as layered soles offering so-called motion control. My orthotics are supposed to take care of that, and the combination in a motion control shoe is too much.

Yesterday I did a run-walk around the lake (1 mile), and today I walked probably a couple of miles with Deb and the dogs and then ran once around the lake.

Once I got going, I found that I had the energy to push a little, but I made myself go really really slowly. Then I went home and stretched and iced. I'm going to have to come up with some kind of training schedule (and also sneak in a little tennis, but not too much).

By the way, my bargain shoes are kind of cute. They're gray with a pink so dark it's close to purple, one of my favorite colors and therefore, as I see it, a good omen.

You want me to do what?

My plantar fasciitis feels a little better, but I have still not gotten back to tennis, so I am spending more time at the Y.

A friend told me that the Total Fitness class wasn't too hard, and, figuring that I could use a little total fitness, I went to try it out Tuesday morning.

A woman who had taken the class before told me to get two sets of weights, a light and a heavy, set them down beside me. She said there are a lot of repetitions, so I should probably start really light; I grabbed two 3-pounders and two 5s.

The instructor jogged in, the music started blaring, and the class began. They did jumping jacks, they did lunges, they kicked and they jabbed side to side. They lifted their weights, lowered them, and lifted them again, pumping them while balancing on one foot and then the other.

Whoa!

I realized with some chagrin that I can do one, maybe two, jumping jacks. Lunges are not in my repertoire. And although I have been practicing standing on one foot (per orders of the physical therapist), I can't do it for very long, let alone while lifting weights.

I did modifications, marching in place and such while the others bounced around. Most of the weight lifting, actually was OK; I just couldn't keep up with the movements.

Afterwards, I learned that I had wandered into a "Power Sculpt" class. Clearly I am not ready for sculpting.

The woman who helped me set up said she was hanging around to take the next class, Pilates. I've only done Pilates once or twice, and since I was there, I thought I might try it again. My friend said it was much more laid back than the class before.

We got to talking, and she said she was a nurse on her day off. "I love nurses!" I said. I wasn't surprised that she was a nurse, because she had the same caring manner as many of my nurses. (During the Power Sculpt class, she had asked me mid-way how I was doing.) While we waited for Pilates, I gave her the three-minute version of my ordeal, and then I joked that I had the perfect excuse for my inability to hop around.

"I was in a coma. I don't do jumping jacks!" I said.

Or if course it could be that I still have not made a complete recovery from the three-plus months in the hospital, even though that was two years ago. At this point much of it probably has to do with muscle weakness from prednisone, but it doesn't sound as emphatic to say, "I'm on prednisone, I don't do jumping jacks."

In any case, it's nice to be able to joke about it.

I did stay for Pilates, which was not too hard and gave me a good workout for my abs, which I could use, due to the aging process, and again, to prednisone, which is known for giving you a little pot belly.

I drove home, pulled into the driveway, and fell asleep in the car.

I'm very good at my 15-minute power nap. Much better than I am at doing lunges and jumping jacks.

Talking about the "S" word

I had coffee this morning with John Stifler, a longtime friend and longtime runner who writes the "On the Run" column for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

Our conversation turned to the plantar fasciitis that is keeping me, and has kept many runners, from going out and doing what we love to do. The conversation was especially relevant since Holyoke's big Saint Patrick's Road Race is this Sunday. That's the 10-k that I was running in 2003 when my fatigue was the first sign that I had leukemia.

John asked if I had considered the "S" word.

I thought maybe he had come up with some new curse, and I asked him what he meant.

"Swimming," he said.

Ah, yes. I have done some laps and gone water jogging, but it's not quite the same thing.

I told him that I remembered my friend Chip telling me, years ago when I first had this crazy-making heel pain, "Sooner or later all of us end up in the pool."

John had a different way of looking at it.

"If you're naturally a runner and you're injured and you swim for exercise, God eventually takes pity on you and makes it so that you can run again," he said.

I liked that.

I asked him if it applied to tennis, but he said he only knew about running.

I hope the tennis gods will take pity on me too.

A Walk to Remember

Here's some good news for walkers, and by extension for runners too:

Regular walking can modestly expand the hippocampus, a part of the brain important to the formation of memories. The hippocampus, something many of us have not thought much about, begins to atrophy around the age of 55 or 60, but the New York Times reported this week that in a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that moderate walking can help reverse the atrophy, thereby improving memory function.

A more in-depth look at the study was reported by the U.S. Department of Health Human Services.

Question: I've been walking quite a bit. Why do I still have trouble finding my keys? Maybe it would be worse and without the walking and running I'd never find them.

In hopes of being able to run without pain in my knees and heels, today I got another new pair sneakers at a runner's store in Northampton. They are New Balance 1064, and they fit Ken Holtz's criteria: single layer, firm insole. I'm going to try them on a treadmill before I take them outside.

The woman who sold them to me, clearly a runner who knew what she was talking about, said that in addition to stretching for my plantar fasciitis, I should roll my feet on something smaller and harder than the tennis ball I've been using. She said maybe use a golf ball or a ball that they sell which is hard and has little spiky things on it.

They were out of stock, and I don't have a golf ball, so I used a mini tennis ball with a smiley face on it that Donna gave me in 2003 when I had leukemia for the first time. I keep it on my dresser with a collection of other special things.

I've used it for this purpose before, and it looks a little worse for wear, but it kept smiling at me.

The blue and silver running shoes look cool and have a wavy lace that supposedly makes them difficult to come untied. I think I'll try them out tomorrow.

Runner's log

Yesterday's exercise:

1. Go to Planet Fitness with my friend Mary and run two miles on treadmill (with just a little walking mixed in).

2. Lift a few weights.

3. Go to nearby diner and eat a turkey club with a heaping side of well-done fries.

4. Eat Boston Cream Pie for dessert.

5. Go to Starbucks for cappuccino.

What can I say? It was lunchtime, and we had to eat. And being in a diner makes me want Boston Cream Pie. I did spoon off much of the whipped cream, though I carefully salvaged the little chocolate chips. The menu read "Boston Cram Pie." The waitress said that's because you cram it in.

When I got home, I walked Maddie about a mile in the freezing cold. Have dog, must walk.

I probably added rather than burned off calories, but, hey, it was a fun day... if you don't count the dog walk, which I usually like, but not in this weather.

Today I saw Ken Holt, the miracle orthotics man who recently made me a new pair of inserts to alleviate my plantar fasciitis. He had also said he didn't like my Brooks sneakers. They were built up too high, and the insole was not firm enough. His instructions: Get a running shoe with a single layer and firm insole.

Today I was prepared for him to say he hates the Asics sold to me at Springfield shoe store that is supposed to specialize in this kind of thing. I guessed right. He said the insole is too soft, causing my feet to turn inwards, thus stressing my knees. He suggested looking for a mid-price New Balance this time.

I'll see if the store will take them back. If they won't, at least I'm doing my part to help the running shoe business stay afloat.

Ouch

My two joyful runs up and down little hills in Central Park took a toll on my legs, specifically my quads, which ached in the same way they do after the long downhill in the 10-K St. Patrick's Road Race.

This was the mini-version. I didn't run on Monday, but I did walk a lot, including going up and down a gazillian subway steps. Going up stairs was fine; going down killed. "Ouch ouch ouch," I said going down each step. You can mumble to yourself to your heart's delight in New York, and nobody will pay any attention.

My travels included a trip to Lower Manhattan to visit PJ in her new digs. She made a good healthful lunch with brownies and strong coffee for dessert. We chatted about this and that and compared notes about our Graft vs. Host Disease and our view of life post-transplant. Having met in the blogosphere, we have discovered in real-life that we are kindred spirits. There is nothing like talking to someone who is almost exactly on the same page.

Monday's travelogue also includes an excellent pizza for dinner at Lombardi's, America's first pizzeria.

Yesterday, Katie and I went to the Frick Museum with my high school friend Pam and my cousin Jeanne's daughter, Amanda. This art collection is housed in the 1913 mansion on 70th Street and Fifth Avenue built by coke and steel industrialist Henry Clay Frick. He collected the art on display, including works by Rembrandt, El Greco and Vermeer. The furnishings, decorative arts, sculpture and architecture are as amazing as the paintings.

We found the bench where I used to sit in high school. I'd stare at the eighteenth-century portraits and have my high school thoughts and the men and women in the paintings would gaze back and say, "Get over it."

(No, I wasn't hearing voices. It is just incredibly calm and beautiful and takes you into another world.)

Yesterday I ran in the park again. It didn't feel as great, and my legs still hurt a little. But if you want to be a runner, you have to accept that kind of day as groundwork for the better ones. Later in the afternoon, after Katie and I sat and read in a Starbucks, I had such shooting knife-like pains in my heel that I had to lean on her.

I don't know if that was the plantar fasciitis or the neuropathy which, despite medicine (neurontin), still keeps my feet partly numb and tingly most of the time, with occasional sharp pains.

In any case, it went away. I probably won't run today, but I can't sit in Jeanne's apartment, either. Katie and I are heading later to the main branch of the New York Public Library to read in its magnificent Rose Reading Room. We'll probably take a bus, but I love walking in New York too much to take it all the way.

A visit to the heel healer

As seen in Martha Stewart Living

For a day, the space under the piano was decorated with not one, but two, pairs of goalie pads. I liked the decor enough to take this photo.

There were two because Joe had taken out a pair that he was selling because they were not the regulation size for college play. This afternoon we were back to one pair. Notice that I too am a participant in the living room's sports motif: My green exercise ball is sticking out from the other end of the couch.

Speaking of sports, I am going to play tennis tomorrow for the first time in weeks. On Tuesday, I saw my foot doctor, Ken Holt, who said that my plantar-fasciitis flare-up was probably due to stiffness in part of my foot, probably because I was inactive for so long. He made me a new pair of soft orthotics to take the pressure off my heel, which he said was hitting the ground earlier than it should.

(I'm sorry if this ailment doesn't fascinate you as much as it fascinates me. I think that only people who've had it can understand the pain.)

He also said to do runner's stretches frequently throughout the day and to continue wearing the brace at night, and it should heal quickly.

As I've said, Holt, who is a physical therapist, is a foot guru to many sufferers. He's a soft-spoken Englishman with a home office in Shutesbury, Mass., out in the boondocks. Just driving there through the woods over snow-covered roads, I felt like I was on a healing mission.

Katie came along with me, and afterwards we stopped for a hot chocolate and cappuccino at the nearby Cushman Market and Cafe´on another snowy back road. It was nice to be off the beaten track, the smell of wood stoves in the air...and to be optimistic that soon I might have happy feet.

Whine time

When I saw Melissa at the clinic on Monday, she said that she would let me know if Dr. Alyea wanted to increase the prednisone.

I didn't hear anything all week, so I thought I had dodged a bullet.

Until yesterday, that is, when I got a voicemail from Melissa saying that they want me to increase to 20 mg. This is still not a huge dose, but it sure is higher than 5.

She said it will probably get my liver to where it's supposed to be and also help my platelets.

I whined to Katie this morning.

"Better prednisone and platelets than no prednisone and no platelets," she said.

Well put.

I walked into yoga last night limping, and Erin asked what the problem was. I told her about the recurrence of the dreaded and dreadful plantar fasciitis.

"This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," I wailed.

She knows better, and of course I do too. We both cracked up.

She devoted some time to exercises stretching and massaging the sole of the foot and talking about fascia, the layer of fibrous tissue that permeates the body.

I had intended to wear the boot to bed last night. I thought I saw it sticking up from a box of stuff. Then I realized that I was seeing wrist braces, which I had worn when I had twinges of carpal tunnel syndrome from typing so much at work. I looked really great back then when I went to bed with wrist braces and a big black boot.

I remembered lending the boot to a fellow plantar fasciitis sufferer, but I couldn't remember getting it back. I called her and she said she still had it. She brought it over this morning, so tonight I'll put it on.

I hope at least my wrists hold out.

Foot fault

I thoroughly enjoyed my private tennis lesson with George on Wednesday, but my foot was not so happy.

I am afraid the crazy-making plantar fasciitis might be returning. This is an inflammation that leads to heel pain on an area about the size of a quarter. It hurts like crazy. When I had it after my first remission in 2003, I complained more about it than I ever complained about cancer.

People who have had it know what I mean. It is just infuriating and incredibly painful. A lot of runners get it, but others are not immune.

To treat it, I got cortisone shots, stretched a lot and rolled my bare foot over a tennis ball to stretch out the ligament. I went to a chiropractor. I took Advil. At night I wore an ungainly boot that keeps your foot flexed. I got several pairs of orthotics until I got the right kind from a physical therapist.

Before those orthotics straightened me out, I had to skip tennis and running for months.

Over the years I've felt a few twinges and panicked, but it never flared up. I'm hoping this will turn out to be one of those instances.

For starters, I probably need new orthotics. Mine, a soft kind, are worn down and chewed around the edges by a certain puppy. I hadn't thought about it much because I've been relatively inactive for so long.

On Thursday I had an appointment with my podiatrist, Walter Wolf, to check on the toenail surgery he had performed – not related to the plantar fasciitis. I told him my symptoms, and he pressed on the area in question. Yup. It hurt a lot.

Wally said I had an overuse injury. He said to stretch more, to ice after exercise, to wear the boot and to skip tennis on Friday.

Not the boot again! Not skipping tennis!

I whined about these terrible prospects.

As I asked in an earlier post when I had a similar response to some other inconvenience, "What am I, ten years old?"

Actually, since in transplant terms I am less than 2 years old, maybe that is my excuse for responding, and behaving, like a child.

I didn't wear the boot. I played tennis Friday morning, had a terrific time...and got another ace. Once I got moving, my foot felt fine.

My heel is killing me today.

I might have to behave for a few days.

Running or swimming?

I just joined a Facebook group called Runners are Better than Swimmers. It has 1,578 members. Its competitor, Swimmers are Better than Runners, is, as of today, ahead in the race, with 1,783 members.
It’s an interesting time to join such a group, what with everyone (understandably) caught up in Michael Phelps' record-breaking eight gold medals at the Olympics. In an interview, Phelps said he wants to help swimming grow.
I can do both, but I put up with swimming, while I love running.

I’m a decent swimmer, and was even a lifeguard in my college days. (Passing that test, in which a burly instructor seemed like he was trying to drown me, was no fun.) I like to swim for fun on a hot day, but I don’t like doing it for exercise, especially in the winter, when there’s all that business of getting wet and the first shock of getting into the water, which feels cold at first even though it ends up feeling OK.

A few years ago, I got a common runner’s injury, plantar fasciitis. It’s a severe pain in the heel and turns out to be a big pain in the butt. I tried to run through it, but I could barely walk. I almost cried at the sharp pain even when just walking into my driveway to pick up the newspaper.

I complained bitterly. When I read up about it, I learned that other sufferers of plantar fasciitis are known to complain loudly too. A year or so before this foot fault, I had suffered mightily during treatment for leukemia. I got severe infections, rashes, fevers, the works. Yet I didn’t complain. My friends and family thought it odd, to say the least, that I made so much more noise about foot pain.

The podiatrist said that swimming was the best exercise at this point. I scowled.
When I told my friend Bob, a runner and tennis player whose hips were bothering him, he said, “Sooner or later we all end up in the pool.”

So swim I did. I had gotten very rusty, but my stroke got smoother with some practice and help from my teenage daughter, Katie, who is a beautiful swimmer. Eventually I found the Zen in swimming. Counting the laps, and feeling my body glide through the water, I felt myself grow calm and focused. And it did end up feeling like a good all-around workout.
My foot took months to feel better, but as soon as it did, I turned my back on the pool and took to the road.