Good Foot Day

Inspirational song: Piggies (The Beatles)

Who woke up to a whole new supply of spoons this morning? This girl! I actually slept, and felt like a moderately normal human when I got up. I'm not going to suddenly run marathons, but I had mental clarity that I haven't been able to summon in a week, and my pain levels were in tolerable ranges. Compared to the absolute hopelessness of yesterday morning, this was nothing short of miraculous.

It probably helped that I had an hour and a half to spend with my kindly massage therapist this morning. Slow Hand has a special understanding of how to deal with me and my autoimmune pain. He has arthritis problems himself, and even moved with a cane down the hallway to our room today. So when I said, "Gee, that's a funny coincidence, that your foot is bothering you, when that's the first thing I was going to complain to you about for myself," he wasn't offended, he was amused. And then he set about working wonders on my left leg. When he started, I could barely stand for him to lightly press against my ankles with his thumbs. By the time he'd worked me over for almost half an hour, I was able to crack jokes about the toe that has been giving me fits for three years. I told him how it just suddenly stopped working correctly three years ago, when I was running around the cul-de-sac looking for a cat escapee, how the pain progressed up the muscles and tendons that control it, how physical therapy helped it for a while, and how it just hurts simply because it exists now. I said, "That toe represents ME." And then I thought about it. I asked, "The big toe is the one who went to market, right? So the second one stayed home? Yep. It IS me."

My feet have provided a special level of pain for going on twenty years, since I first took a second job at Barnes & Noble, before I was hired on full time at the library in North Carolina. I'd spend the first four hours of my Saturday workday at the reference desk of a busy library, jumping up and escorting patrons to the right places in the stacks to find their books, but getting to sit briefly at the desk doing the computer work. Then I'd go straight to the bookstore, and work eight hours until close. If you've ever worked retail, you've heard the BS mottoes, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean," and "You DO NOT SIT in retail." So after thirteen combined hours at work (you don't just go home at close, you clean the store before you leave), I'd limp to my car and cry big snotty sobs all the way home from the pain in my feet and ankles. I was thirty-one years old but I felt so broken and old.

I honestly think my feet never recovered from that punishment. I tried to keep going on them, even trying again to work retail for a few months while I finished my masters degree. But walking hurt. Standing hurt (especially standing in line to vote for three hours in 2012). Now, sitting with my feet on the floor hurts, and it's worse when I cross my legs. Lying in bed is awful, because the blankets press against them, or they touch each other which I can't stand. Even sitting with them up on an ottoman is difficult now. My everyday life is a five on the pain scale with them. So when I have massages that focus on them like today, dropping them between a three and a four, it is a very good foot day. I live for these.

For the record, while I was starting to compose, the Mr started watching the Last Week Tonight episode where John Oliver founds a church. So while I'm starting to write about lupus pain, I'm hearing "Out, demon lupus! You probably didn't even know you had lupus, did you?" Why no, John Oliver, the first time I heard that segment, I didn't know. But I do now. Too bad they gave up on that whole schtick. I'd appreciate someone driving out that demon lupus right about now.

I'll just close with signs that spring is finally coming to Park West...