Anxieties come in all shapes and sizes

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In Need of Advice

One of the things I love about blogging – and this blogging community specifically – is that we are all roughly Going Through It at the same time. I feel very comfortable sharing the ups and downs of life, because it seems like you are going through similar ups and downs. Or have recently done so, or are in a stage I recognize quite well from being In It myself fairly recently.  The commiseration is so bolstering, and I find the helpful hints and advice that your share in posts and comment sections to be invaluable. 

Sometimes I need specific and mundane advice, like “what’s the best mascara,” and other times what I really need is more of Life Coach Guidance. Lately, I have some questions of both varieties that keep going round and round in my head with no resolution, and I am hoping that you might have some helpful hints or advice to share. Anything and everything would be useful.

Girls’ Weekend: I find myself in charge of a dear person’s Major Birthday celebration, or at least in charge of Getting The Ball Rolling (what I am hoping to do is come up with two or three really good ideas that I can then share with the birthday girl, and she can – hopefully! – choose one option.).  But I feel COMPLETELY OUT OF MY DEPTH. Yes, the all caps are necessary. You, however, are much more social and well organized than I am, so I am turning to you for help. WHAT CAN I DO for a low-key, not exorbitantly expensive girls’ weekend? 

The birthday girl is not particularly picky, which is good… but also, it would be nice to have more specific guidance… OH WELL, we do not have more specific guidance, or any guidance at all outside of the request that the four invitees “spend time together.” And also, children are not invited. 

Here are some things that are important but add to the challenge: The birthday girl does not drink. She does not really eat. She is not particularly outdoorsy. These things are helpful for ruling options out. My initial thought was spa weekend! That sounds lovely and doesn’t have to involve alcohol or lavish meals or hiking/biking/skiing/swimming. But I did some research into spas and/or hotels with spas and they are SO EXPENSIVE. I don’t even know what the budget should be, but it should not be LUXURY WEEKEND level, you know? For example, one hotel-with-spa I looked at was $788 per room per night. This is not even taking airfare into account, or the cost of spa treatments; this is lodging alone. AND THAT WAS ON THE LOW END OF MY RESEARCH. Oh: that’s the other thing. I would want us to all have separate rooms. I mean, I suppose some combination of the others might want to stay in a room together, but I require my own room. This could be four bedrooms in a rented house (although my husband says he no longer trusts Air BnB for reasons that are not entirely clear? Do you still trust Air BnB?) or it could be four rooms in a hotel. For ease of travel, the celebration probably should be near Chicago or New York City, which are relatively easy for each of us to get to via plane. (Are there awesome girls’ weekend options in Madison? Minneapolis?)

Do you have any ideas? Any ideas at all???? Literally the only idea I’ve had, aside from “spa weekend,” is “go to NYC and see a play.” But even THAT makes me hyperventilate because… Which play? Where would we stay? Where would we eat? What else would we do besides see a play? I honestly hate New York City. BUT. The birthday girl does not, and this is about her, not about me so maybe that will be one option to present her. Which still leaves me in need of at least one other option.

What would you want to do for a girls’ weekend? Have you been on any girls’ weekends or family trips or couple’s getaways or work events that were especially fun? Why do I keep thinking about axe throwing? I do not want to throw weaponry!

I have never been to a spa party. It sounds fancy and fun. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Protein Powder: Is there a protein powder that doesn’t taste like… anything? I really want a protein powder that has NO TASTE. I had a long conversation with a chatty nutrition expert in the supplements aisle of my grocery store the other day, and she recommended I try Epic Protein by Sprout Living. Mainly, I think, because I told her I wanted to try a sample before I spent $20+ on a giant tub of protein powder and the options were sort of limited. I got the chocolate maca flavor and also the vanilla flavor. It took me a long time to try either of them, and I have only finally tried the chocolate one. I blended it up with some coffee, ice cubes, vanilla extract, and skim milk and then threw in a tablespoon of mini chocolate chips for good measure, and it was… drinkable. Not good; I would not describe it as good. It was far, far less disgusting than the only other protein powder I’ve tried. It was a Garden of Life vanilla powder and I mixed half of a sample packet into a homemade Orange Julius (almond milk, orange juice, vanilla extract, ice) and it was so horrific that I had to pour it out without finishing it. The chatty nutrition expert said that all protein powders taste like something, but… really? 

You know this is a stock image because I would never put peanut butter in my smoothie. Nor would I… sprinkle oats??? all over the counter. (Photo by Leah Rolando on Pexels.com)

Annual Birthday Planning Angst: Speaking of birthdays, which I was awhile ago, Carla’s birthday is coming up and it is once again time for me to stress endlessly about her party. It always works out and yet I have so much anxiety around every aspect of her party each year. This year, Carla has Very Specific Ideas, which, as you might recall from several paragraphs ago, I was begging for. In this case, they are perhaps a bit TOO specific. She would like a wolf theme. She would like a three-layer cake; the middle layer should be chocolate, the other layers should be white; there should be raspberry something between the layers; the frosting should be GREY. Deep breaths. I cannot picture a grey cake, which sounds the opposite of appetizing, so I will do some googling after this. But the cake is honestly the LEAST of my concerns.

For her party, Carla would like to do a nature walk and then go to a park somewhere. Okay, so the reaction to that is probably, “Aww! That’s so cute! That sounds lovely and low-key!” And it is, it is lovely and low-key. She is such a nature lover and that makes me so happy and obviously I want her to have the party she wants. And yet… HOW am I going to pull this off?

Here are my concerns: 

1. My child is turning ten, and presumably will invite other ten-year-olds. Won’t they find a nature walk kind of boring???? Part of me says, it doesn’t MATTER what the other kids think, as long as Carla likes it. And this is partially true. It’s Carla’s party; it should be the party she wants. But also, we are inviting friends to join us, and I think that creates an obligation to entertain said friends. And also also, if her friends are bored, isn’t that going to make her feel bad? These kids are 100% at the age where one of them might announce, loudly, with an eyeroll: “This is the most boring party ever.” That would crush Carla! 

2. HOW am I going to arrange a nature walk? I don’t know about nature! Carla cheerily suggested that we bring her iPad and load up Merlin Bird ID so we can all see which birds are around, which is pretty much the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard, but deeply impractical when you are talking about hosting multiple ten-year-old children. We are fortunate to live near some beautiful nature preserves, but the parties they offer seem more specific (about bugs or about fairies, in one case) and also geared toward younger children. One local science center offers a bird-themed birthday, which could be okay… although part of the entertainment is dissecting an owl pellet. This is 100% in Carla’s wheelhouse, but once again I wonder: will her guests enjoy that? Even if they aren’t squeamish, they already dissected an owl pellet in school, so it won’t be new or exciting. A friend suggested geocaching, but I know NOTHING ABOUT THAT. Is “geocaching party leader” a job? Can you hire people to do that? 

3. We cannot do a nature walk and then go to a park. Just being adjacent to thinking about transportation logistics – not even actually thinking about it! – makes me dizzy. 

4. How do you wrangle/keep track of 10-15 ten-year-olds during a nature walk? Wouldn’t we need extra adults to help? A friend very kindly offered her services, but… can I do that to her? I could probably hire a couple of babysitters to join us, but then we have two extra people to fit into the planning. Are there… nature walk games that we can play? What would those be?

5. WHAT IS A WOLF THEME? What does that mean? Is that even a thing?! I have not googled yet, and I suppose that might help allay some of that particular worry, but… WOLF THEME?!?!?!?!?!

I am not sure I have mentioned it here, but I have a weird phobia of wolves. This photo gives me the newbie jeebies. (Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com)

Housewarming: If all continues to progress as needed, my parents will be moving nearby this summer. It is SO exciting. I would love to get them a housewarming present, but… what? They aren’t big on stuff, although they will need to buy all of the normal day-to-day items necessary for living in a house. For various reasons, things I normally think of as “standard housewarming” fare, like wine or candles, are off the table. I could splurge on some really fancy Champagne; they would probably like that. Maybe a big pile of books about local drives or local hikes? A welcome mat? New towels? (But how do you buy someone towels without knowing their color scheme?) When we moved into our house a million years ago, I would have loved a gift certificate to Home Depot or the like. But it feels a little weird to buy a gift card for one’s parents. I suppose “feels a little weird” isn’t a reason not to do it. But maybe there is a better idea? 

Is a welcome mat too personal an item to give as a gift? (Photo by Andrew Neel on Pexels.com)

So Many Gifts: Thinking about a housewarming gift reminds me that this is the time of year when I need to think of So! Many! Gifts! My niece’s birthday is coming up; she will be seven and likes Pokemon and STEM activities. Our Girl Scout troop leader is retiring; we need something for her, but I don’t know what says “thank you for expending a truly heroic amount of time and energy on my child over the past five years.” Probably we will contribute money to teacher gifts, and then maybe do gift cards for Carla’s activities coaches? And then Carla will be TEN, which feels like an opportunity to get her Something Special… but I’m not sure what that would be; she is very spoiled. (We are not getting her a phone.) Plus, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are coming up, and I am just… idealess on that front. Lots of gift giving opportunities and my brain is refusing to come up with anything reasonable for any of them. Have you given or received any really spectacular gifts recently?

Oh geez this photo reminds me that not only do I need to BUY the gifts, I have to WRAP them, too. (Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com)

Good Socks. All of my socks are terrible. I think I have only recently noticed this because I now wear shoes in the house every moment that I am not sleeping or showering. Every day, I wear a pair of ankle-height athletic socks. It seems like every pair either has holes in them or they slide down the back of my heel while I am doing normal things like walking. I tend to buy those big packages of Puma socks and the like from Costco, and maybe the solution is “spend more money on socks.” Is that what I need to do? What socks are worth spending money on? I do have two pairs of compression socks that I rather like. But I can’t find either pair for some reason right now. They are hiding. I would love to do a massive sock purge and replace all the crummy socks with new, super awesome ones. Do you have socks you feel particularly evangelical about?

These are not at all the kind of socks I am looking for, but they seem so cozy. (Photo by Lum3n on Pexels.com)

Okay, I think that’s it. I am both less stressed than I come across in writing, and more stressed than probably is reasonable, and I would LOVE your advice. Even if it’s just a CORNER of advice, like, “I have no idea where you should go for your girls’ weekend, but I just went axe-throwing over the weekend and it was so fun!” Or “Three years ago, I bought my dad THIS and he’s loved it ever since.”

And if YOU need advice, please, ask away. Perhaps one of the wonderful members of this community will have JUST the suggestion you need. 

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Podiatry Talk

In highly exciting news, I have recently had occasion to visit a podiatrist for the first time. 

Relatedly, I want to talk about my foot. The thought of doing so bores me almost to tears, so I feel deep empathy for YOU, whose foot it is not. The thing is, it has been causing me enormous grief for months now and I better just talk about it and get it over with. 

Sometime in December of 2021, I started having heel pain when I woke up. It would be worst when I first got out of bed, then would gradually subside throughout the day. My runner friend told me it sounded like plantar fasciitis, which is a term with vowels that look incorrect even when I know they’re in the right places. I looked up plantar fasciitis and found some stretching exercises to do; I did them; they seemed to work. 

But then after maybe a week or so, the exercises stopped being effective. And the pain got worse and worse, so that any time I sat down (and as a person who writes for most of the day, I sit a LOT) and then tried to stand, I would hobble around with serious pain. It started waking me up in the night. It started affecting my ability to drive (I would get sharp shooting pains in my arch when I pushed on the gas or the brake). It made it difficult/painful for me to do my preferred type of exercise (walking). 

I went to a podiatrist, who seems very knowledgeable and who came highly recommended. But it seemed to me that the podiatrist relies a little too heavily on ME and not heavily enough on measurable facts. I suppose that’s how most of medicine is, isn’t it. If I say I have sinus pain and I’m miserable, and the doctor presses on my forehead and under my cheekbones and asks if it hurts, she has to take my word for it that it does. A gastroenterologist has to rely on your report of stomach/intestinal pain. But I hate that. I do. I want to be able to go to a doctor and say, “I am in pain” and for them to be able to VERIFY that, scientifically. I want them to have calipers that measure the pain so they can nod and say, “Yes, I see, this is clearly a Level 5 pain.” rather than making me the sole reporter of painfulness. For one thing, I feel like I have a low threshold for pain, so that what might be excruciating for me would be just a little twinge for you. And I don’t want to overreact to pain, or come across in any way like I am overexaggerating. I want it to be quantifiable. It’s NOT, but oh well. 

The podiatrist did press on my foot to see if I reacted, which I did. And he used an ultrasound machine to check… something. I’m not sure, but he did measure something and record those measurements. (He also took an X-ray, to ensure I didn’t have any fractures or cancer.) (Brief digression: I have been having pain in both feet, but one is much more severe than the other. When I checked in, I explained this. The receptionist said she would send me for an X-ray right away, and did I want X-rays of both feet or one? Um. I don’t know? I feel like that is not the kind of decision I, the non-doctor, am qualified to make? I did say that I would do whatever the doctor recommended, and the receptionist said, “It’s really up to you.” So I told her we could focus on just the one because the pain in the other foot is – currently – livable. But then the whole time I was getting my foot X-rayed I was feeling panicky that I had made the wrong choice, and what if I needed to come BACK in a few months and do it all again, and pay extra to get the other foot X-rayed when I could have gotten it all done at once? I had to use some coping thoughts like, “less radiation NOW is better, when I may not ever need a X-ray for the other foot.” And, “I made the best choice I could in the moment, and there is nothing I can do now.” And, “maybe it would end up costing the same anyway; I don’t know if they charge per foot or per visit, so who knows.” And, “I am fortunate to have health insurance and a health savings account, and this is what those things are for.” I had a good hearty wait before the X-ray technician was ready for me, so I got a chance to repeat these coping thoughts several times. (And panickedly wonder whether I could ask the X-ray tech to do both feet, or ask if I could call up to the doctor and alter the order.) It turned out okay, and if I need another X-ray of the other foot at some time in the future, so be it. But I really wish that the DOCTOR would have said, “Well, I really think that we should focus on the one foot that’s causing you the most trouble.” Or “Well, this thing can develop quickly so if you are having even a little trouble, let’s treat the other foot too.”) 

This is a very complainy post about my podiatrist, when really he seemed very nice. I guess I just get very anxious about doctors’ visits. I don’t want to waste the doctor’s time, I don’t want to overestimate the problem, or make A Big Deal when it’s not a big deal, I don’t want to spend a lot of health savings account money when I could really just be at home icing my foot, you know? 

Anyway. After the podiatrist evaluated my foot, he gave me a little mini lecture about what plantar fasciitis is, using a plaster foot as a visual aid, and I thought it was very useful and interesting and then promptly forgot everything he told me. He then gave me a splint to wear on my foot while sleeping (“gave” – it cost $75; it is possible I could have bought one myself elsewhere for much cheaper, but I did not) and a prescription for a steroid/anti-inflammatory drug, and scheduled an appointment for me to come back in just over a week. 

The first day of the steroid, I had excruciating bone pain in ALL my bones. That was deeply unpleasant. But on days two and three, the bone pain had subsided and I had almost NO PAIN in my afflicted foot. It was MIRACULOUS. Then, as I “stepped down” the dosage of the steroid over the next week, the pain returned. It was dispiriting, to say the least.

Not to mention that the splint for my foot is not… super. It wraps around the ball of my foot and then has a stiff arm that goes up the outside of my shin, and tightens around my calf. Kind of like a shin guard, only a bit more flexible. It keeps my foot in a slightly flexed position, which is not uncomfortable. The edges of the Velcro closure scratch my toes though, and I find it very difficult to sleep with the thing on my leg. Plus, I absolutely cannot walk on it, so I have to remove the whole splint every time I get up to go to the bathroom which is at least twice per night. (Each time, I try to undo the Velcro as quickly as possible, so that I don’t wake my husband. I feel like the sound of Velcro reluctantly parting from itself would be a highly unpleasant way to wake up in the middle of the night.)

When I went back to the podiatrist, the medical assistant asked me how things had gone, and I told her: my foot was definitely better than it was before, but it was not great. She said, “What percentage has your pain been reduced?”

What? Ugh. While I was just whining a few paragraphs ago about wanting quantitative measurements of medical issues, I do not want to be the one who provides them. I am at a loss for how to evaluate things like this. If you ask me to rate my pain on a scale of 1 to 10, I usually have NO IDEA how to do that. Like, I have in my head the worst pain I have ever experienced, so I assign that a 10. But then… it’s very difficult to know where other things fall. Primarily because pain is so immediate, and because the perception of pain fades with time. Right now, it HURTS, and it’s bearable or not.

Anyway, I told her that maybe the pain was 20% better – which was a wild guess on my part – and she said, Wow, okay, that’s not good. If you had said it was a 70% improvement, maybe we could give you another round of the steroid, but the next step is usually an injection. 

Now, I had heard about the injection before I ever made my first appointment with the podiatrist. The person who recommended him had had an injection for my exact problem, and it seemed like that was the treatment, so the steroid/splint treatment I received was a surprise to me. I’d been prepared from the get go for an injection, and the podiatrist had mentioned at my first appointment that if the steroid/splint didn’t work, I would probably need an injection. So I was anticipating an injection. 

The medical assistant left and when the doctor came in, he said, “I hear you were begging for the injection.” Which made my eyes go all wide until I realized he was joking. THEN he told me that a lot of people say the injection is the worst pain they have ever had; that women who have delivered multiple children say it’s much worse than childbirth. (Not the most reassuring way to begin the injection discussion, Doc!) But, he went on, he has never had any patient say that to HIM. HIS injections are painless, and he uses a specific method that makes them so.  

So now I had two things to hold in my head: 1. That some people find this injection to be excruciating and 2. That I could not in any way tell this guy if it WAS, because he would not believe me. 

He put up a little curtain, separating my eyes from from my foot, which is a weird way to phrase that but I am leaving it, and sprayed my foot with what he called a “cold spray.” THAT was pretty uncomfortable, but bearable. And then he started the injection, which took several minutes and was also fairly uncomfortable but bearable. I had to do some deep breathing, and had to clutch my arms across my chest quite tightly to get through it, and there was some tear-prickling at my eyes, but no actual tears. (At one point, he asked if I was doing Lamaze breathing back there, which made me feel quite embarrassed. He went on to say if I left with a baby, we’d each have a lot of explaining to do, har har har, and as I mulled THAT ONE over for awhile, while trying not to breathe so audibly, I came to the conclusion that I probably wasn’t breathing THAT hard, and that instead the Lamaze thing was probably a bit he does for lots of his patients.) (I feel as though, in describing this to you, I am describing this doctor quite unfavorably. I definitely do NOT jive with his sense of humor, although I can see how many patients would find him hilarious and delightful. But I did feel that he was a good listener, and that he cared that I was in pain, and that he wasn’t judging my particular level of pain tolerance, and that he was determined to resolve the problem. AND that he was an experienced and knowledgeable practitioner.)

Anyway. The injection was FAR from the most painful thing I’ve endured. Dental procedures are much, much worse. But afterward, my foot was sore and I kept getting these little shooting pains in my heel and walking was about as uncomfortable as it had been before I saw the podiatrist. 

The injection did HELP, for a while. The next day, my foot felt significantly better. But I am nearly a week out from the first injection and I am back to hobbling around when I wake up/stand up after sitting for awhile. 

And yes, I said “first injection” because the podiatrist mentioned that, for a LOT of people, one injection resolves the issue completely. But for some people, it doesn’t. And that we needed to resign ourselves (he didn’t say resign; I think he said “commit.” Resign feels more accurate for me, though.) to THREE injections before we pursued a different path. He didn’t even mention what the next path would be, so I’m trying to borrow some of his confidence that the second or, gulp, third injection will do the trick. I am NOT looking forward to another injection. Last time, I had the added anxiety of not knowing what to expect. But now I have a different type of anxiety because I DO know. And it’s hard to go into something, knowing it will result in pain. 

This feels like the kind of thing I had better get used to, as I age. More and more parts of me are going to fail. More and more parts of my body are going to experience pain. I am not pleased about it, but I recognize that this is just A Part of Aging. And I’m really very lucky. I can still walk. I can still exercise, even if doing so is slower and causes residual pain. I can afford to treat it. Hopefully my marriage can withstand my ongoing crankiness/hobbling.