Dear Santa Wish List Contest Entry
This is my entry to @goldendawne 's Dear Santa contest!
Dear Santa,
This year, I would like a good pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet or sciatic nerve.
my old, worn out docs
You know I don't own a car or anything Santa, and so I walk everywhere, and without the right shoes, my feet hurt and my sciatic nerve gets pinched. If my sciatic nerve gets pinched, it really hurts and sometimes my legs give out! That used to happen every day and I thought it was just something I had to live with, until I went to medical assisting school and they made us wear nursing shoes as part of our uniform. My feet didn't hurt!!! My nerve didn't get pinched!! Who knew?
After that, I learned. I had always bought whatever was cheapest, but no pain and functioning legs was worth the cost - plus, the nicer shoes lasted much longer, anyway! These worn out Docs lasted me about five years before the support started to go so I started pinching again and a zipper broke. They cost $100 (I caught them on clearance!) - five pairs of Payless shoes that hurt and wore out in a year at $20+ a piece, or one good pair of Docs with no pain that lasted five? Easy choice.
But Santa, you know I haven't been able to work in a long time and I can barely feed the kitties and myself and pay rent; I haven't got $100+ for a new pair of Docs.
I have a pair of sneakers that are better than Payless shoes, but not pain free (and not waterproof, so if it's wet, they're out). I have a pair of super warm snow boots that are about the same in pain level, and thankfully waterproof (and hot if it's above freezing! LOL). And I have a pair of dress shoes that are waterproof, but hurt like hell (they were $8 and I was just looking for anything waterproof when I had none). The other shoes on my shelf are pretty much worn out and painful, but I keep them around for lack of replacements or until I literally wear a hole through the bottom. Some of them I HAVE worn a hole in the bottom! I need a comfy pair of shoes, Santa.
You know my size. ;)
Yuan would like a new cardboard scratcher and Maggie would like a new catnip rainbow. 😺😺
Thanks, Santa!
Love,
Phe
I see the pain my husband goes through with a bad back and neck. Surgeries didn't help. I can have empathy for your situation.
I've seen enough people be no better or worse off from back surgery that I am just like ...nope. A coworker my age, and this was several years ago, was on back surgery #4. A friend younger than me has had three. One of them was to remove the hardware from a prior surgery that was causing problems now!
I have scoliosis as well, which runs in the family, but I didn't know it until a couple of years ago when I saw the doctor for serious neck pain, she had me take off my shirt, and just looking at me said, "Well, you have scoliosis... " Did the xray for official diagnosis insurance type reasons, but since then I've just been trying to be more mindful of posture and how I carry heavy loads and thankfully, the pain has abated in my neck.
Exactly, my husband had neck and upper back surgery. Is he better? Depends on the day, the moment and such. Sad really.
Scoliosis added to this is NOT a good thing. My oldest daughter had a HUGE growth spurt during her junior high school years (she is 6'3" now as an adult) and her back was so out of whack from the growing phase that she was treated as if she were a scoliosis patient. Then when she was in high school, being as tall as she was, she hunched her shoulders down to not be AS noticeable. Sigh... back to the chiropractor and doctors.
Ohhh no, your poor daughter. :( I saw at a fair once this system that was essentially hella expensive pillows arranged such that it aligned a scoliosis patient perfectly and it was a treatment you do every day rather than hardware attached to you. I think a chiropractor invented it. If I had crazy money, I would buy one for me, my mom, and my brother (all of us have scoliosis).