The long walk to realization

An early morning start at my podiatrist, who for some reason thought I'd be happy to go into Room 101 at 8:30am to have my foot prodded and pummeled, pinched and bent, twisted and examined. As I come to the end of the shelf life of my weary hips, I am doing everything I can to push back the time when I go back to the surgeon for a full replacement, and if that means dragging myself out of bed early, then so be it.

It was, it has to be said, quite the appointment. My podiatrist is actually exceptionally good (and not just in the 'laughs at my weary jokes' kind of way). She videoed mw walking up and down the white corridor in the picture and then examined it against a clip she filmed two years ago, noting the differences and sharing it all with me. She even declined to sell me new orthotics for the time being - always the sign of a true professional, in my humble opinion. As we were wrapping up, she had a brainwave. 

"Has anyone ever measured your legs," she asked.
"No," I replied, truthfully.
"Because sometimes..."

To cut a long story short, she soon had me laid out on a massage table and was checking my body to find the hip bone. Then she measured. 

"Well there you are," she said, "that might explain a lot."
"What?"
"Well, your right leg is two centimetres longer than your left, so you are starting to limp to compensate."

My mind obviously went to solutions - but all I could think of were too ghastly to contemplate. 
"Does it need more surgery?" I asked.
"I could recommend that," she said. "I mean, we could just sand down your right foot until both legs are the same height. That is one solution. Or, I could just add a lift to the orthotic you use under the left foot to help even it out."
"Oh yeah," I said.
"Or you could just stay the way you are and change your name to Eileen," she added, quite unnecessarily I thought.

I escaped from there, picked up Mrs. Ottawacker and went to vote (turfing out the evil Tories from Ontario) before heading to the bank to pay the second half of my tax bill. This really was a traumatic day.

Finished off the morning by meeting a friend for lunch on the patio of The Clocktower: second lunch in two days sounds a lot more decadent than a second lunch in 2.5 years).