#ankles

Thanm you kind anon QmQ

Um uhh I like hurt/comfort I like fics where people need a hug and get a hug or just get to cry

I like Legend and/or Sky centric things and Legend&Hyrule but not when Hyrule is babified to an extreme level or Legend&Time or Twilight

Lehend and Sky being chronic illness buddies is also a thing I like

I wake up with my feet and/or bad ankle still hurting from the day before. Not as bad as the day before, of course, but nagging. And I know I am about to get up and abuse them.

There will be about half an hour of gearing them up for the day. Thar can never be avoided. I get dressed and then sit down to get things sorted out. Breakfast, the animals, anything short of the house on fire has to wait.

For the bad ankle, the foot that has been wrecked the most by the abuse my structural defect has inflicted:

Bandage on sore spot on the bad ankle that rubs. Regular sock. Thick sock. The easy bit.

Now the hard bit.

Chunks of padding I’ve rigged up over time, like armor for the ankle to shield it from the pressures and rubbing of the ankle brace and boot. A piece here, a piece there. Each having to be carefully positioned. Very carefully. Dozens of bits of athletic tape gets snipped off with scissors I have to clean of adhesive regularly. Then a tab here. A tab there. Holding the padding in the exact place. Is the padding in need of refreshing after weeks being pressed and rubbed? Will it shift? Will it ride up and down with the roll of my foot with every step? I move my foot around, testing. Retape. More tape. Always more tape.

Another thick sock to protect the padding. It’s always a struggle to get on, over the padding without pulling the tape free anywhere.

The ankle brace.

My foot and ankle are so misshapen after decades of walking on my super flat feet that I can’t just wear the ankle brace as intend it. . I have to maneuver it around, adjusting where the pressure points will be, where it will settle when I walk. Occasionally scissors are required with new ones when the heel opening is designed for where it will fall for normal feet.

Then I have to tie it. Sometimes I have to change the lacing, skipping holes. On the upper part I have to use the loops rather than holes, so the pressure can have more wiggle up there when I walk. If I don’t it means hurting the part of my leg/ankle that’s actually fine as the brace has to move up in down as my foot rolls like a storm tossed ship. I have to tighten the laces, tighter here, looser there, enough to give my foot support, not so tight the brace itself cuts into me.

Then the straps, meant to go around the foot, under my non-existent arch and held by velcro. Only with this foot the strap supposed to go around the inner side of the ankle has a problem. The ankle juts out dramatically, and not evenly. The strap is intended to go in a sort of dip in front of the knobby bit of an ankle, instead I’m trying to pull the strap tight around a ball. Too far back and it slides off the heel, too far forward and it slides further forward and causes pain. And I need to get the straps tight enough to do any good supporting my foot.

Now another thick sock, wrestled over all of this. (Because I live in tick country and have been bitten year round now, I tuck my jeans into the top of the socks unless I’m going to town or something.)

Finally, the boot. And that takes maneuvering too. Because of my misshapen ankle and foot, and all these layers, I have to get giant boots. I adjust the insert, trying to get my foot halfway lined up right. Right means the weight mostly comes down over the sole of the boot, despite my foot in part of it being wider than that. Lacing it all up, tightening, tightening, but not too tight here, tighter there.

If I do everything right I can be on my feet all day and even run

Do anything wrong, even get something off by a fraction of a millimeter, or tad too much pull on the lacing and it’s all pain. Or should I say PAIN! Little things wrong make all the difference. I’ll spend the rest of the day hurting, maybe a little at first, maybe a lot all day.

So there is a lot riding in that half hour of gearing up my feet. Will I spend a day doing things energetically, or will I spend my day pushing my way through pain? Will I walk so fast nobody could keep up or will I hobble? Will pain shove out all other thoughts, my only goal to get to dark when I can free my feet?

And this is every morning. If I’m hungry, if cats are yelling for food, if the phone rings, if I’m listening to the news and the story enrages me, if….well, anything distracts me or makes me feel pressed to rush I’m more likely to screw up getting my feet ready to face the day. But whether I screw it up or do it perfectly, I have to face doing it. Every. Single. Day. For the rest of my life.

Or at least the rest of my life as a mobile individual with the ability to control my own fate. I have a fear of what will happen when I’m a very old lady, or if I ever have a medical problem that keeps me from being able to gear up my own feet. I might one day need help to get my feet rigged up, and I honestly can’t imagine anyone being there to help me through this. The curse of being alone. The curse of being alone in a cruel, heartless, world that values self sufficiency above all else.

But that’s the future. Who knows, maybe I’ll die before it’s an issue.**

Some mornings it just feels like too much. But since I can’t just pop off my worn out flat feet for a spare pair, even just to give these a day to heal up, I get up and do it.

Every. Single. Day.

(Before you ask why I don’t just redo my feet, well I do sometimes. On really bad days I stop everything, sometimes just sitting on the ground to try to adjust things. But it isn’t easy without starting from scratch, and all the original tape ends up wasted, and tape costs money. Plus I don’t always have the time. Better to just make it to dark and finish what I’m doing than to stop for half an hour, or more if I have to get back to the house for tape, for a fix that may or may not work. I am very good at enduring pain….and I am tired of being good at it!)

PLEASE ITS SO PRETTY

My ankles.