Getting Poked

Some of you may know I have been visiting the acupuncturist because I have stupid Plantar fasciitis that won't leave me alone.  Now I'm pretty sure no one actually enjoys being poked with needles, and most find it uncomfortable.  I tend to be fairly neurotic about needles.  Or I guess I use to be.  Now that I've been getting allergy shots each week for the past year, I have accepted that it is okay to be uncomfortable for a second to receive a better result.  I wasn't concerned about acupuncture though.  I know the needles are super-tiny and don't hurt.

Well, they usually don't hurt! When I went in the first time, they lovely lady told me it would sting going in because of all the nerves in the feet.  She wasn't kidding!  About 4 or so of those needles hurt going in.  They only hurt for a minute, then all is well. Out of the 15+ needles she put in, only a few actually hurt.  And since I have been back for 3 more visits since then, well, it must have been worth it to me!  If you have never tried acupuncture, it is pretty simple.  You tell them what the problem is and they poke needles into areas that should help fix it.  You lie there for 30 minutes, then they come and remove the needles and you are done.  Again, it does not hurt at all during that 30 minutes. 

I brought my camera with me on Saturday for my most recent visit.  Since my foot has improved so much, they said I needed fewer needles and they wouldn't hurt going in at all because they wouldn't be going in as deep.  I was suspicious, but it was true!  Whew!  

Here I am, being a pincushion:

Marian, How do I love thee....?

Marian brought this home the other day.  Her Girls on the Run did this as a self esteem thing, I think.  It was super cute.  Someone drew an outline of Marian and Marian wrote lots of words on it to describe herself.  I was reading the words and asked her if she got them off a list.  She said no, she thought of them and wrote them down all by herself.  I LOVE this kid!  You can't really read them all, so here are the words Marian used to describe herself:

fierce  kind  helpful  awesome  creative  funny  fantastic  cool  smart  thoughtful  nice  remarkable  hungry  fast  loving  generous  energetic  flexible  unique  beautiful  courageous  radiant  responsible  cute  lovable

Ye, my darling daughter, you are ALL of these!!

Fishy Fun

Monday was Veteran's Day and I had not planned to do anything.  Dan planned to take advantage of some of the freebies to military and was going to go to lunch with some of the kids.  I discovered that the Zoo and Aquarium were both going to be free to military that day.  So I gave up nap time to take the kids (and Dan!) to the aquarium.  We met at the ferry and sailed across the river to New Orleans and enjoyed the aquarium.  The kids had a surprisingly good time and were really good.  It was a nice day out as a family and I enjoyed it a lot more than I had expected.

Hamming it up on the giant shark mouth.

Delaney striking a pose with the seahorse.

And we can't forget the frog.  Must climb on it.

Sure, why not see if everyone can fit on it for a photo.  Yeah, those are my kids.  I let them climb on everything and annoy everyone else.  Actually, the place was not crowded at all, thank goodness!

No waiting to pet the sting rays.  The kids loved this.

They rearranged their play area and there was this faux fishing boat which the kids really enjoyed.  Rylee loved "catching" fish.

We meandered down the river walk a bit.  Here's Rylee being sneaky and silly.

Did I mention the climbing thing?  3 kids up in a tree, and 2 begging for a boost.

My cute Delaney.

View of Nola from across the river, as we headed  home.

Feelin' Churchy

 Joshua got to go on his first Temple Trip 2 weeks ago.  I got to drive up with him and his buddy Jacob.  Then they went to do the youth thing and I went to do the adult thing and we met back up and drove home.  Nothing earth shattering, but a lovely morning.  I was glad to hang out with my boy!

More grown ups than youth, but a good group and they had a good experience.  Joshua is in the front with the strained expression.  He doesn't do fake smiles well at all. 

Last weekend was our turn to clean the chapel.  The kids know the drill by now and are pretty good about it all.  They don't complain much, do their jobs, and we usually go out for food afterwards. They are good sports and they work pretty hard.

Joshua was chief hall vacuumer.

Rylee helped clean off the fingerprints she helped make on the doors.  Window washing is one of the more popular jobs- along with chalkboard cleaning. 

 Callie helped put the hymn books away.

I got to vaccuum the main chapel room.  It always takes forever, because I have to use the hose to clean the pews too.  (I know, not a flattering shot, but hey, if it weren't for unflattering photos, I'd have no photos of myself at all!)

Letter to my Podiatrist

Dear Dr. Podiatrist,

I have been stewing over yesterday's visit since I left your office.  I'm really annoyed with you. This was our second visit;  I saw you six weeks ago.  You were not very communicative.  I walked in, with a list of things I had been doing and you didn't care. I had my shoes in the car in case you wanted to see what I wore, but you didn't ask, and you were so not interested, I didn't even bring it up.  I said I thought I had plantar fasciitis and you spent 10 seconds with my foot and proclaimed my Achilles tendons too stiff.  Then you began wrapping tape around a piece of foam on my foot.  I was perplexed.  You never said what you were doing, or why you were doing it.  You never said what I was suppose to do with it.  Perversely, I just waited to see if you were going to explain yourself, because I'm kind of passive-aggressive like that, but nope, you never said a word about it.

I thought you were going to send me out of your office with no clear answers.  Fortunately, I also had a list of questions I wanted to ask.  Once I started asking them, you actually became more user-friendly.  You did answer my questions.  I kind of liked that you said you wanted to take a conservative approach and you were confident I would overcome this quickly.  I was a little surprised that the only things you mentioned were to stop running, do a specific stretch 3 times a day, and purchase some orthotic shoe inserts.  You suggested anti inflammatories, but I do not want to be taking them for forever and said so.  I asked about the steroid shot but you said no, let's try the easy fix first.  I asked if I should be doing anything else, and should I try a night boot.  You said no. I felt like maybe there should be more, but you didn't think so.  So off I went.

I stopped running.  I got the shoe inserts.  I did the stretches.  I discovered the shoe inserts hit my foot back at the heel.  After 4 weeks, I began to wonder if I was seeing no improvement because the inserts were aggravating it.  I wondered this because my foot hurt worse in the evenings after I had spent time in the shoes with the inserts.  I stopped using them.  However, I switched to a shoe with good arch support for going to the gym, and I wore orthotic (Spenco) sandals the rest of the time. My feet wore some sort of arch support 90% of my waking hours.  I took over the counter anti inflammatories for a week, and was aggravated to see no difference.

In addition, I have a slant board in my bathroom, and I occasionally use the frozen water bottle to roll under my foot.  I see the chiropractor regularly for my back and the chiro spent extra attention on my foot.  I explored acupuncture on the foot, and while it wasn't pleasant, there was a little improvement.  Sadly, nothing gave me miraculous relief, or lasting relief.

After 6 weeks, my foot still hurt.  Every day, every time I used it. I came back to see you at the appointed time.  You hadn't even asked what I was doing before you began to tell me I wasn't improving because I hadn't done what you told me to do.  I had mentioned a visit to the acupuncturist and that I saw the chiropractor.  You were offended that I would seek help from elsewhere and told me that if I wanted treatment to work, I needed to stick with one, and I wasn't getting better because of that.  I was offended that you had no idea what I had been doing.  I did exactly what you asked me to, yet you did not listen to me at all.  You accused me of not following your treatment program.  You hadn't even asked me if I had.  You assumed that if I had tried acupuncture or the chiropractor, then obviously I wasn't doing what you suggested.  You assumed wrong, and you did not even wait to see if I had followed your 2 protocols.  Astonishingly enough, you were also unhappy with me for not using the prescription you had given me.  A prescription you apparently gave me at our last visit, without ever mentioning you were giving me a prescription.  Honestly, I found out you had prescribed an anti-inflammatory (directly to my pharmacy) when I got the notice from my insurance company 5 weeks after you sent it in. I then had to call the insurance company to ask what this was.  Had you listened to me on our first appointment, you'd have known I wasn't interested in taking drugs long term anyway.

You also implied that I was wasting your time.  That I was stringing out visits when I could be doing more.  That one really perplexed me.  You were the one who wanted to be conservative.  I was really confused as to why you thought I was making us need more visits, but you were on a tirade, and obviously were not interested in hearing anything else.

I'm sure you recall our time together somewhat differently.  However, I have no interest in hearing what you think happened. I have no interest in seeing you again.  I think you didn't listen and I will not be visiting with you again.  If I want someone to ignore me, I have 5 children for that.  If I want a doctor who will listen to me, I will be finding one elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Thoroughly disgruntled