We tell children that practice makes perfect; the first time is always the hardest; once you get used to something (whatever that may be), it’ll be easier to deal with.
It turns out that, as with all rules, there are exceptions. And for this one, the exception is the walking boot. Practice does not make perfect; every single time is the hardest time; you will never get used to it and it will never be easier to deal with. In this TED talk, I will…
The first time I’m in a walking boot is after a particularly violent ankle sprain. I’m walking out the door of my mother-in-law’s house and I forgot that there is a slight “lip” where the sliding door slots into place. I catch my toe on it and I fall, hard, twisting my ankle behind me.
By the time I stand up – it takes a while – my ankle has bruised, ripened to a pallid, purplish hue. We rush to A&E and I am X-rayed and examined (that’ll be $1,500, thank you very much) and it is concluded that it is just a sprain, albeit a bad one. I am told to wear a boot for the next six weeks.
The first time I’m in a walking boot is over Christmas and into January. We are living in a house without a fenced-in garden, so several times a day I walk the dog on a short leash, hobbling through the snow in an utterly graceless manner.
At least, you could think to yourself, this time it is summer and I don’t have to contend with the snow and the ice and the dog – we live in a house, now, with a fenced-in garden and, as a result, he gets far fewer walks than he should. You could think to yourself, it’s probably not as bad this time.
But you’d be wrong.
Because you’d have forgotten entirely about the heat. The slow, sticky warmth of the summer, that somehow manages to infuse the boot and the foot within, no matter what temperature the air conditioning is set to at home. There is no escaping it.
Each night, when I remove my foot, I can almost hear a sucking sound, as I pull it from the soupy boot and expose it to the air. A squelching, a gurgling, a loosening. (A queasening?)
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