All girls wear heels

Some injuries creep up on you. They follow you around for a while and you grow accustomed to them. And they don't really do anything. And just when you're no longer aware of them, they pounce like wild felines.

Such was the case with my foot. One day it started aching every once in a while when I was walking. I noticed it the way you notice bird crap on the sidewalk. After a while, I forgot about it. Then on Wednesday, I parked my car in the city and walked the eleven blocks to my internship downtown, got off work and walked back to my other internship, which is basically made out of walking. I have to walk to the different theatres of the film festival before screenings start and hand things out to people in line. Walking. My foot decided it was time. Every step I took, the ball of my foot protested. It felt like something was out of line and I needed to pop it back in, like cracking a knuckle.

Instead, I walked around and winced. I walked on the outside of my foot. I walked on the heel of my foot. I limped. Finally, I went home. I looked at my foot, massaged it, felt around to see if a bone was missing, if there was an extra bone... I went downstairs to get some painkillers, walking on my heel. Now my heel hurt. I made it to the painkillers, but now I couldn't move. Feeling somewhat dramatic, I pumped out a few tears and stood in the kitchen on one foot. It was 2am. There was no one to call, I thought. And what good would that do?

The next day, I went to a podiatrist. He asked me to describe the pain - I was given multiple choice:

"Is the pain shooting, throbbing, sharp, dull, constant, localized...?"

I considered this question in silence long enough for him to seem confused. How do I know what each of these descriptions means? Are they in the medical textbooks? I haven't read them, so am I qualified to answer the question? If I answer incorrectly, will he misdiagnose? I finally responded.

"Well... it's in this one specific area, so I guess it's localized, but it can spread, so I guess it's not too localized. It feels like a shooting pain? But that might be more of a function of the time that it lasts than how it feels. When it happens it feels like it's throbbing, but I don't know if that's accurate since it only lasts for any length of time when I'm pushing off the foot. When I think of the word sharp I think of a knife (at this point I made a stabbing motion) so it's not like that, but it happens fast, and it's kinda sharp, so I guess it's a shooting pain."

As I said all this, the doctor circled and crossed things out on his doctorly form. I was hoping he would leave the form blank and just tell me what kind of pain I'm in. Instead, he told me I have a pinched nerve and gave me a weird little pad to put on my foot. He also asked me how often I wear heels. I told him I almost never wear heels. He seemed skeptical. I laughed nervously as if the notion of wearing heels was ridiculous, and made some jokes that he did not understand. He gave me a prescription for painkillers (not the fun kind) that make me feel nauseous and sent me on my way.