Heal Heel!

This afternoon I went and saw a Dr. about my persistent foot pain. He's a top notch physical therapist recommended to me by my sister. It was a bit of drive to see him (he's out in Hillsborough) but I knew I wanted to go to someone who not only knew what he was talking about, but was in tune with running - and he was all of these.

I was honestly expecting him to tell me that I have a heel spur or something equivalent and that I would need to give it some more rest, get into some good orthotics and away we go. Apparently, I should stick to my day job instead of moonlighting as a doctor because that's not what he thought at all. He watched me run and poked and prodded my heel and determined that it probably had nothing to do with plantar fasciitis. If it were a heel spur he said I would still have the classic symptoms of pf like severe pain in the morning. In fact, my foot feels the best in the morning. And saddest of all, for the 30 seconds I ran for him, my foot hurt. Pretty bad.

He thinks it could be a stress fracture or stress reaction. I was a bit floored by this because in all my years of running, I have never had a stress fracture. I've never even broken a bone my entire life. He suggested I get an x-ray, which can sometime show a stress fracture (but not always), so I'll be making another appointment with a sports orthopedist. If nothing shows up, I'm not so sure I'll go to the next step which would probably be a bone scan, but he assured me if nothing showed up I am not crazy. I guess we'll go from there. So in summary, not what I wanted to hear. I have no idea when I'll be able to run again.

In other news, Tassie had a tick on her last night - another new experience for us. She was good and let me hold her while Marty tweezed the little sucker out. We put it in a baggie and then tried to determine if we managed to get the head out or if it was still lodged in her. We think we got it, and she seems no worse for the wear