Tuesday, March 8, 2011

All things FEET

All of you that have a foot phobia, go ahead and find something else to do because otherwise you're going to read this and say "eww, feet" the whole time and then blame me for the 5 minutes of your life that you wasted on reading a post about feet.  You don't even like feet anyway.

OK, for the rest of you that have stuck around and really want to hear about feet, here you go.

Did you know you can get eczema on your feet?  Seriously, is that for real?
Is the skin on your feet super, overly dry?  So dry that maybe your husband might say "honey, you really need to get that checked out" and you probably reply with "oh, it's just really dry, it is winter, you know."  And then he follows it up with "seriously, haven't you heard about some disease that makes you have lizard skin? You really need to get that checked out."

OK, so I waited a few months to get the super, overly dry skin on my feet checked out.  We're headed to FL next week and a light bulb went off....Florida, hot, sun, FLIP FLOPs... Oh shit, the lizard skin!  (oops, sorry mom, no worries, I already bit the soap; good thing I make my own now.)

Guess what she told me?  The coconut oil, vitamin E, super expensive creme I've bought?  None of it will work.  It needs a steroid cream because its eczema on my feet.  One day of cream and my feet are pink again, who knew?!  So, here's your daily tip.
If you husband tells you might be developing some rare lizard skin disease, go to the doctor!

Feet story #2
Emily's feet grew from a size 7 to a size 10 in about 7 months last year.  Talk about an expensive shoe bill!  I nearly birthed a cow in the sports store when the size 9, then 9.5 didn't fit and I had to reach up and pull the size 10 from the top shelf.  I had half a notion to buy the sports wrap and bind her feet right there but I thought surely we'd come to the end of the growth cycle.

Since last fall she's had a lot of pain in her feet after activity and she's a very active girl so we heard her complaints often.  I finally thought this wasn't growing pains so we made a trip to the pediatrician who referred us onto the podiatrist.  Her appointment with the podiatrist was today and after one look at her feet and x-ray he asked me "is your husband tall?"  I get asked this ALL the time when I have Emily with me and he isn't with us.  My response, as usual, was 'no, he's 5'10"" so then he looked at me quizzically.  I knew what this look meant because I see it just as often as I'm asked about my husband's height.  I quickly replied "I have a very tall grandmother" and he said "ah, there it is."  It must be in the doctor's handbook to trace down the tall DNA gene or something.  He told us what we've heard many times, Emily will be tall.

As it turns out, Emily got screwed when they handed out the feet DNA and has some issues that we need to work on resolving.  One way to hopefully resolve it without surgery is orthotics made for her shoes.  As with most insurances, ours won't cover custom orthotics and buying a new set every shoe size change would become quite costly.  I mentioned to the doctor that she's been in a size 10 for a few months now so maybe that means she's leveled off on the foot growth and orthotics might be a good idea.  Right about the time I said she's been in a 10 for a few months Emily piped up with "Yea, and they're getting small!"  Oh my, seriously?  Size 10.5?

When I was a teenager my mom and I had the same sized feet, pretty much.  But, she always hated it when I wore her shoes, "you'll stretch them out," I'd hear.  I'd always think "yea right, how can I stretch out your shoes?"  When Emily blew through her size 8-9 shoe range and tried to take my shoes guess what I said to her?  "No, you'll stretch them out!"
You'll stretch them out is really 'mom code' for "get my nicely cared for shoes off your feet before you wear them outside and get mud in the treads or let the shoelace drag on the ground because I don't buy shoes for my teenage (or tween!) daughter to wear;  get your own damn shoes!"

Now that Emily wears shoes nearly 2 sizes bigger than I do, I don't have to worry with her borrowing my shoes anymore.  Small victories.