Sunday evening, for no apparent reason, my right foot swelled to an incredible size.  On Monday, I started feeling pain in my foot when I walked, but it wasn’t post-surgical pain in my toes; it was in the main part of my foot.  I tried ice and massage, and then ibuprofen for pain, but nothing helped.  The swelling is so severe that there is no visible arch under my foot and, when I stand, my toes don’t touch the floor–they just stick straight out.  The top is well above the top of my other foot, and it’s so wide, I can’t even get my toes into a shoe!

This morning, it was still swollen and I was limping because of the pain, so I called the surgeon and made an immediate appointment.  The diagnosis:  I have a stress fracture on at least one of the metatarsels.  As a result, I’m back to wearing a surgical shoe for a week, followed by another week of athletic shoes only, and I’ll be taking an anti-inflammatory medication for two weeks.  Because we caught it early, the doctor assured me it will heal quickly and I’ll be wearing regular shoes when we leave for Europe.

I didn’t know what a stress fracture is, so I asked questions.  In the doctor’s words, a bone in my foot is “trying to break.”  Stress fractures can be triggered by medical conditions (like surgery) that weaken the supporting muscles and decrease the muscular support of the bone, resulting in extra stress on the bone.  If I didn’t have such super-strong bones, and if I hadn’t been doing physical therapy for my foot muscles for the past five weeks, I’ll bet the damage would be much worse.

One downside of this is that I bought a really cute pair of new shoes to wear with a new summer dress when we go to church with Jeff’s family on Sunday, but I’ll be wearing a black surgical shoe instead.  Bummer!

Note:  When people see the surgical shoe and ask how I injured my foot, I tell them I was sliding into home.