A year and a half ago, I started dressing nicer. It was work related, and it was good "proper" clothes--not sassy, but fairly stylish. Part of that transformation was high heels; not pumps, high heels. Beside lurching around like a stiff-kneed jackass, I looked pretty good. However, when I got home each day, my feet just felt horrible. When shopping for the heels, I was advised that wearing Converse for the last 20 years had not exactly left my feet in a shape to fit heels correctly. My feet had gotten wider and were a half-size bigger. So all the shoes were rubbing off the top of my toes, and my toenails felt like they had been shoved back in to the nail bed. What was worse, though, was when ever I stretched my toes, and man, I love to stretch my toes, a horrible electric jolt would run through my big toes, and they felt like they were separating from the joint. It is painful, but also sort of enjoyable. It's the electric-shock bit. It hurts but my toes feel alive with juice! Then they just feel disconnected and horrible. So I stop stretching and everything goes back to normal.
For several reasons, I believe I suffer from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome; yet, I have never had this confirmed, and not sure where I would start. I have had agonizing joint pain since high school, and am fantastically double-jointed. I can touch my elbows together behind my back! With years of zero exercise, I can get in the lotus position in 2 seconds flat AND lift myself up by my fists while in that position. Most people go to yoga for at least a few months to comfortable get in that position, much less be able to lift themselves. I discovered recently (during the Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions show) that I can flex my fingers in such a way that they look like scoop hands, and that is with my palms facing the floor and my fingers pointing up to the ceiling. It's very creepy and I like to terrorize The Boy and Wikus with it. The worst are my knees (that is where all the pain started during my freshman year of high school). The only sport I've ever participated in was swimming in 7th and 8th grade. I was fairly good in freestyle and backstroke. I developed a terrible chlorine cough and my knees just killed me. A doctor told me and my parents that my ligaments were really loose and weren't holding my kneecaps in place; thus, my kneecaps were rubbing against my bones. Doesn't that just sound like a grand time? So, to this day, my knees sound like tires on gravel when ever I bend them. There are all these old men that I work with, blue-collar guys who have always done manual labor, and they'll boast about how awful their knees are, and I say, "Oh, really?" and bend down. Their jaws drop. If I knew how to record a wav file of the sound of my knees, I totally would, and post it for all of you, so you would know I am not exaggerating.
Way back then, the doctor said I would probably have the same joint problems in other areas as I got older, and shit, he wasn't lying. In college my hands and fingers started crying if I wrote in longhand for more than 2 minutes. They got to the point where my brain would tell them to do something, but they wouldn't even move. My friends bought me this awesome jar opener because I was incapable of opening anything sealed. I still use it to this day. After college it went to my elbows. I used to love braiding my hair, and now I can't have my elbows bent for that long just to braid my very thing hair. Or when I'm sleeping, I wake up at night to find my elbows are locked and I can't straighten them out for awhile. Have you tried sleeping with your arms out straight by your side? I can't do it.
So now it is my toes. Just in time for my developing taste in wearing awesome clothes. That is just downright wrong. I have put up with the pain in my knees, hands and elbows, but why my toes? I have the money now to buy lovely dresses and skirts, and the fun shoes to go with them. Most people at my office look like kindergarten teachers, then there is me. And I don't want to give that up! Yet my toes are disconnecting from their joints when I stretch! It is exacerbated on days I wear high heels. What to do?
And that is my Chicken Day Eve story!
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