free web tracker soliloquies: 04/18/2004 - 04/25/2004

soliloquies

so・lil・o・quy/- n. [C,U] a speech in a play in which a character talks to himself or herself, so that the audience know the character's thoughts.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

"plantar fasciitis"

Whew! What a hot day...God, it's still April! The fourth month of the year! How hot is it going to be in July? With an attribution to favor winter...I'd better start thinking about the strategies to endure the upcoming (Japanese) summer. Winter is the most wonderful season and I'll write all about it...hmm...maybe when the real summer arrives, as a part of my complaints against the summer.

Different topic. There's this phrase, which I have been shouting over and over in my mind, (occasionally, out loud) every time my weight went on my heels for the past three days. "OW!!!" for the right and "OW!!!!!" for my left. It all started on Friday afternoon. The training menu for my group in the tennis club for the day was,

Appetizer - 1 lap around the Inner Loop (gaishu)
Entrée - 4 laps around the Outer Loop (daigaishu) (that is about 12 km in distance)
Dessert - stretching

This was my first running since the 6th year started and as being an addict to the comedy "Friends" during the spring break, this was tough for me. I mean REALLY TOUGH. (No offense) But I couldn't give up without a try, so I ran though the full 4 laps around the Outer Loop. I didn't notice any change during that day. The pain came the next day. I've run 12 km in the past and this has never happened before. Also, being healthy for all of my lifetime so far, these symptoms usually went away by the next morning, which gave me the judgment of passing the visit to the orthopedist on Saturday.
Unfortunately, thing were a little different this time. The pain was still there.

"I've gotta go see the doctor right now!"

This was what I thought up inside my head the moment I woke up on Sunday. But...problems.

Un - I didn't know where the insurance thingy was placed inside our house.
Deux - My dad was in Amsterdam, my mom was in this tennis tournament in Fujisawa. No means of asking the location.
Trois - Most of the hospitals are closed on Sundays.

Another postponement. Damn! Then, without any measures against the symptom, the sun came up again as it did for the past gazillion years. There came Monday, the school day. The condition did not change at all. In fact, it became worse. I believe that the pain I had on Monday had about 25 exclamation points after "OW". Successfully living through the day bearing the pain, I dragged my feet into the local orthopedist. After couple of questions, a snap on the x-ray and a few minute wait, ta-da! The diagnosis was told.

The symptom is called "plantar fasciitis" and the doctor told me that the pain was coming from inflammations on some nerves inside my feet. He prescribed me some poultice. Currently, in the stage of cure, I am looking forward to see the number of those exclamation points decrease, taking the "O" and "W" out with them. But, uh-oh. Darn it! I'm going to have to run the 1500 m endurance run, do the ball throw measurement and make a 50 m dash...alone. I guess I'll just have to call this "side effect"...bummer...