#soft cast

Ah, vacation time! The foot/toe/joint was a bit ache-y on the trip, but nothing out of my new, adjusted version of ordinary. We hiked Angel's Landing at Zion's National Park (awesome, btw) and did other outdoorsy things. It was great, and I really needed the break.

After a short week and many hours of driving later, I was back in the studio. I teach for a few hours on Tuesdays, plus take a two-hour ballet technique class myself. The pain in the bottom of my foot slowly started increasing that day as I taught. By the time I was in my class, I could hardly stand at the barre without clutching it for dear life.

Dancer instinct, much like Dory the fish, says, "Just keep dancing, just keep dancing..." Mine was no different, though this time I added, "Keep it warm, keep it moving," to my mantra.

I didn't last very long.

The pain had turned sharp and brutal. Like a carving knife stabbing into the same spot, just south of my big toe on the ball of my foot, repeatedly. Additionally, I felt the pain pulse outwards medially to the knuckle and joint. I described it to some dancer friends sharing the barre with me as feeling like someone had taken a melon baller to that part of my foot and I was dancing on the bone. My brain thought a few times about nerve pain, but I dismissed it. Nerve pain is one of those weird things I always imagine to be chronic and irreparable, given the nature of nerve regeneration. Even peripheral nerves, though they can heal, take months and months to repair themselves.

I sat down after the barre exercises and iced my foot, which didn't help at all. The pain was so intense, that if I were insured, I would have immediately made an appointment with a doctor for the next day.

Instead, I went through all of May dancing on my hurt foot, teaching, standing at work all month, and doing things normally. It wasn't until all my toes went numb one day in church, and with much persuading from The Boyfriend, that I finally decided to pony up the monies and get this thing looked at.

Enter Dr. G, your friendly neighborhood podiatrist. Paperwork, X-ray, prodding, examining, old injury discovery (he was sure that was the painful area; it wasn't), and a diagnosis. *drumroll* A transverse fracture in the lateral sesamoid bone just under my metatarsals! Aka, broken baby bone exactly where it hurts.

Soft cast, squishy weight redistribution pad, purple wrap, and a killer shoe. Re-do the whole deal once a week, check up on the progress. No dancing, no extended walking, no standing at work, no lifting over 20 lbs. My new new adjusted version of normal.