The Wu Move & Groove Movement

The Wu Move & Groove Movement has commenced. 

My brand and spanking new and polished left Clark's shoe has been given a masterpiece makeover by my beloved and newly found Shoe Repair Man Tony.  He was Prince Charming when he presented the left shoe with its curved height by a removable lift.  I was the swooning and starlet Cinderella when I slipped my left foot into the shoe for the first time.  I grew at least an inch right then and there.  Not even that familiar jolt of pain in my left hip or lower back could stop me from feeling this moment of height and normalcy.  I closed my eyes and saw myself with long, steady, and pain-free strides in these Clark's shoes meant for work and Puma shoes meant for fun.  The internal cheerleader in me that is high on life whipped out its gold and red pom poms with the mantra: Adjustment, Patience, Perseverance.  I grinned with the images that ran through my mind.  I was giddy with the Wu Move & Groove Movement beginning. 

But, there was a catch.  Tony had went from my Shoe Repair Man Prince Charming to my Wizardy Godfather when he explained: "Mary, the only one who can remove lift.  You come to me when you need."

My crestfallen facial expression said it all.  All this time, I thought that I was the power and controller that could remove the lift whenever I need to in order to make adjustment to the heightened shoe happen.  I could feel complaints and protestations tickling on my tongue, but I stopped.  I had nothing to complain about.  I could not spend my days and efforts complaining when I had work that I had to do, which was truly adjusting to my modified new shoes.  

And, let me tell you, it really WAS work.  Correction.  It really IS work.  But, who said that this Wu Move & Groove movement was ever going to be easy?  I continue to spend my evenings outside of work walking in the comfort of Mother Nature in my Puma shoes to try to train my body to like this new height that will more or less be the height after my impending hip replacement surgery.  The sunshine bathes me in warmth and confidence that every painful jolt only means that adjustment is happening.  I am often thankful for pain that is my reminder of the balancing act I live with every day to "move and groove without overdo."  I've now been walking in increments up to thirty minutes in my Clarks and Pumas, and though the tension of adjustment is still there, it is lessening day by day and step by step. 

Another vital part of the Wu Move & Groove Movement has been implemented, and that is I officially have a general practitioner doctor.  I've been seeing my new nephrologist (kidney doctor) for at least a year.  In this last year, the number of health episodes of viral illnesses (aka: colds) and allergies most fortunately unrelated to my kidneys increased.  I continued to go to my nephrologist who agreed to see me out of sympathy and a liking for me, but then always ended our visits with: "You know, Mary, you need to find a general physician.  I'm just mainly seeing you for your kidney maintenance and care."

With the surgery in the horizon that requires medical clearance from my nephrologist and general physician, I took the plunge last week to meet with a possible general practitioner.  She is a relatively new physician who started her practice about a year ago.  I chose her because of her background in nephrology.  With shoulder-length dark hair and eyes and her careful attention and genuine appreciation to my heavy black binder containing all my health documents of medications, surgical procedures, emergency room visitations, doctor office notes, and more, I immediately liked her.  It was a full-blown physical examination and every lab test known to man was drawn along with an EKG.  She promised that she would call me to let me know the results, and her keeping her word with a phone call from her and NOT her nurse practitioner, nurse, or secretary solidified me deciding to stick to her at my general physician.

With the shoes and physician implemented, I was able to focus on a new adventure: Meeting my penpal from Spain for the first time AND letting her stay with me for a week.  This was the first time I played host to someone for an entire week.  I've had my adventures of meeting and staying with penpals and even penpals staying with me, but it was when I still lived at home with my parents.  Nervous, excited, and anxious were just a few emotional adjectives that wafted in me, but there was a blanket of calmness on top of all those emotions from the knowledge that her and I had known each other since 2005 and had a connection from the words and stories shared in letters that we exchanged. 

It was a whirlwind week for me when my penfriend from Spain arrived.  I was trying to recover from a strange allergic cold of constant coughing whilst playing chef and tour guide.  My meals were ABC (American-Born Chinese) and Internationale Americana, including sauteed chopped up eggplant, ground turkey, and tofu with Korean purple whole-grain rice and Trader Joe's vegetarian pizza and a ready-made Dole Caeser salad.   My tour guide consisted of driving up to Orange County to browse at the odds and ends of eclectic stores to apple picking and shopping at farmer markets. 

For an entire week, I went without my swimming.  I held my breath in dreaded anticipation for the muscle spasm that would attack or flare up that would occur at any given moment.  However, I was shocked at only the typical and usual arthritis aches and pains that crept in the mornings, causing me to be a knotted pretzel and nights and left me as stiff and unmoved as a stone unturned.  My response to these usual pins and needles pain sensations was to ignore and enjoy every moment I had with my foreign friend that I had the great fortune to bond with face-to-face on our American escapades or when we just sat quietly as we played with paper with our Origami skills and watched re-runs of my favorite TV show "Monk." 

At some point over sipping from straws that were lost in a super-sized rootbeer float or walking up and down the sidewalks with squirrels munching on acorns and the red, white, and blue American flag swaying in front of large Victorian-style American homes, my penfriend shared in her lilting accent: "I would never guess that you were sick.  You stay so active and energetic.  It is so good." 

Her words echoed in my head.  My body seemed to take her words even more seriously because it reacted with the sharp aches and pains that were all too familiar of an onset of a muscle spasm.  My mental and emotional reaction was crankiness and cravings for chlorine, swim caps, goggles, and the ultimate comfort and sort of solace and remedy to my body: The Swimming Pool. After dropping off my friend and bidding farewell until we would meet again in her home city Barcelona, I practically road raged to the gym to get my swimming in.  The scent of salted chlorine and the feel of water on the tips of my toes to the rest of body immediately soothed me.  My cravings were fulfilled.  I stretched, stroked, swam, and streamlined as though I had not even seen a swimming pool in a month. 

My body relaxed and tension was lifted. My body was home in the water.  This is when it sunk in for me that my greatest #1 Weapon against arthritis in my movement aside from the shoe lifting and doctor finding is literally moving and grooving while still carefully considering my body.  Every stroke I take in the swimming pool or every step I take when I walk in my new shoes, I am fighting against arthritis AND preparing for the surgery that lies ahead in the future.  I am the juggler and balancer of my own life of always staying active and busy and achieving that fine line of never overdoing to the point that I may hurt myself.  There is a constant middleground that I strive to stay at, and I am trying to overcome the extremist that I tend to be at the very core of me. 

People often tell me to take it easy and relax.  I will take it easy and rest in peace when I am dead, and so for now and in the moment, I am living and enjoying my life with the people I love most and making my Wu Move & Groove Movement happen while I am alive.  May the movement forge forward with every positive force ion in me! 

Keep smilin' until we meet again,

Mary :-)

The Cinderella Shoe Complex

I am going through a Cinderella Shoe Complex.  Except, it is not some handsome and debonair Prince who is trying to find me with the other glass slipper to my glass slipper.  Rather, it is me that is hunting and searching desperately for the correct shoe repair person to build correctly and with the right material outside of my left shoe or shoes to then level off my crumbling left hip and truly prepare for my hip replacement surgery. 

I am currently using a 13mm heel lift in all my left shoes.  The heel lift goes in the left shoe and slapped on top is my orthotic.  In my right shoe, the orthotic is slipped in.  I am fully aware that my left hip is crumbling faster than I could ever predict because the bottoms of my right shoes are forming holes due to my heavy compensation with my right leg.  Pebbles are getting stuck in the holes so when I walk in my unbalanced gaint, I start to make sound effects like a human rattle.   

When my osteopath gave me the prescription that indicated to build 17mm outside the left shoe, my first concern was finding the right shoe repair shop and especially person to do the job correctly. 

The first shoe repair shop I went to was in Pleasantville.  I could not help but grip even tighter on to the thin, yellow Shoprite bag that contained my beloved black Puma sneakers when I eyed warily at the small and dingy shoe repair shop in Pleasantville right before me.  Once I walked into that shoe repair shop and told him that my osteopathic doctor had ordered 17mm built on the outside the bottom of my left shoe, the journey to facing off with my hip replacement surgery full throttle would officially begin. 

I opened the plastic bag to reveal my precious Puma sneakers that had been with me and provided me stylish cuteness since I was a teenager.  I could not imagine the mutilation that this left Puma sneaker was about to endure.  I was beginning to doubt if I was right to choose these Puma Sneakers to be the very first pair to endure the identical appearance being ripped away from them. 

I sighed, and tied the plastic bag into a loop with determination.  It was now or never.  No looking back.  No regrets.  My osteopath had recommended this shoe repair man, and so I had full faith that I had to go through with this decision of building outside of my shoes to then prepare for my hip replacement surgery.  I finally marched into the store, but had the immediate urge to sneeze at the old and tethered leather bags that hung haphazardly on hooks and misshapen and old shoes scattered on outdated stands.  Lined at the front desk area were Christ-loving or Bible-banging pamphlets.  The store looked like it was locked in the early 1990's or even the late 1980's. 

I tentatively walked to the front area where a jovial and round-faced Asian woman nodded for me to speak. 

"I have a prescription from one of my doctors to add 17mm to this left shoe.  Are you able to do this?"  I reached into the plastic bag to reveal the left Puma sneaker that shone in the dim lighting. 

In halting English, she said: "Hold please."

She scurried to the back of the store, and out came a thin and ganley Asian man with a weathered and tanned face just like the leather bags in the store.  She said, "You tell him what you need." 

I explained again.  He gently took the left shoe, eyed it, and just nodded with a grunt: "Yes, I can do."

"What material will you use?  How much will this cost?"  I asked.

"I show you."  He went to the back of the store again and showed me a rubber sole kind of material.  My fingertips brushed against the material. 

"30 dollars," he said with finality.

That was not as expensive as I thought it would be, but I asked him anyway: "What is your background?"

 

Both the round-faced Asian woman and this weather-faced Asian man stared at me with round eyes.  The woman finally said: "Korean." 

I broke into a smile.  "Well, you know, I am Chinese.  We are both Asian.  We have something in common.   Perhaps you can giveme a discount?"

The man shook his head and grunted again, "30, and that is it."

Oh, well, I had tried.  I said: "Okay."

"Come pick up in just a couple of days," he said. 

I nodded.

Almost a week went by when I returned along with a friend of mine who was intrigued when she learned that I was indeed going forward with building material outside of the shoe to prepare for the hip replacement surgery.  I explained to her what my osteopath explained to me that my feet leveled off as equal as possible with the shoes would help prep my body for when I finally did undergo a hip replacement surgery to lessen the rehab intensity and time. 

My friend asked me: "So, can any shoe repair place do this kind of building outside of the shoe?"

"I think so."

"Why don't you go to Tony's Shoe Repair in Ossining?"

"I never heard of them," I confessed.

"Oh, they are awesome.  Tony can work magic with any kind of shoe, and he and his wife are this cute and worldly couple from Italy that play this opera music all day long." 

"Hmmm...I'll look more into it," I said. 

My friend and I approached the front desk again in this tiny shoe repair shop.  The Asian man recognized me as soon as he saw me.  He even gave me a small and awkward smile, but his smile widened when he saw my reaction to the precious left Puma sneaker.

I could not believe it.  He did an amazing job.  Looking at it from a distance, no one would ever guess that the left Puma sneaker was lifted outside because the material he used looked just as similar to the original Puma sneaker material.  I was pleasantly surprised and ready to fork over my $30 in that instant, but I first had to try them on.  I immediately stuffed my orthotics in the shoes without my original 13mm lift to test out wearing both Puma sneakers.  Almost automatically, I felt the jolt of my left hip being raised and pain radiating from the hip to the left lower side of my back. 

I cringed in pain. 

My friend asked worriedly: "Are you okay?  Are they comfortable?"

I was the impressed Cinderella to have lucked out with this first fine shoe repairman.  His workmanship was stellar and outstanding, but the reality of trying to truly embark on this journey of my body adjusting to these lifted left shoes was almost more than I could take both emotionally and physically. 

I blurted out: "It just feels so different!  I can't believe it!"

"Well, it is going to take you awhile to get adjusted to the height difference, but your body will get adjusted to it like I'm sure your body got adjusted to those heel lifts."

I nodded, and tried to walk in the shoes all over again.  The shooting pains in my left hip and lower back rewound my brain to the time when I had first tried to adjust to the heel lifts and then to the many muscle spasms that had attacked at any given moment.  Adjustment, patience, and perseverence were happening all over again.  Everything was going to be okay.  At least I had found my shoe repair man.  I happily gave him my $30. 

In the next days that followed, my osteopath and I finally talked about a game plan to adjust to these new and supposedly improved black Puma Sneakers that were my starting point of preparing for my hip replacement surgery.  She said: "Walk around in the Puma sneakers for a few minutes at a time with the orthotics and up to a hour.  Then, return to your old shoes with the left heel lift and orthotics.  Alternate.  If you need me to write a doctor's note for your workplace, let me know."

"I'll first start outside of work," I said.

And, so I did just that.  I often walk around my complex for a good ten minutes.  Stuffing my fat and flat pancake feet into my brand new black Puma Sneakers, I walked.  And, I walked.  And, pain traveled and moved along to my clumsy movements in these sneakers.  Exhausted after a ten minute walk, I took the Puma sneakers off and rubbed my feet.  Pain lingered, and I sighed.  Tomorrow was another day.  I would try again tomorrow. 

I tried the next day.  I tried the day after that.  The pain stayed and the routine of rubbing feet ensued.  Although I was incredibly grateful to this first repair man who had fulfilled my Cinderella shoe complex, there had to be another way.  If only I could have a  lift built outside and at the bottom of the shoe that could be removed instead of permanently plastered on.  If there was a removable lift outside of the shoe then I could take it off and put it on as needed to get my body adjusted.

My answer came in the form of a middle-aged woman my sister had met and introduced me to who already had a double hip replacement within less than a year a part from one another.  We met for lunch.  She walked with such ease and comfort that you would have never guessed that she had one and even two hip replacement surgeries.  I envied her freedom from pain, and wondered if I would also be that way one day.  Someday. 

Her clear blue eyes widened when she shared: "I was in pain all the time.  I could not even walk.  I had to have the hip replacement surgeries.  My last resort before the surgeries was lifting or building outside of both of my shoes."

My ears perked up.  My Cinderella Shoe Complex had kicked in about finding just the right shoe repair man.  "Who did you go to to build outside of the shoes?"

"Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining."

Bells of excitement rang off in my head.  My friend had also mentioned Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining.  "Really?  A friend of mine recommended him, too."

"Oh, he is the best, Mary!!  He does these removable shoe lifts!"

My eyes bugged out with excitement.  "Oh, my God!  That is exactly what I am looking for!!"

"You definitely have to call him up.  He will let you know if he can or cannot work on the shoe and, when he does work on the shoe...well, you won't regret it.  He is a shoe genius!"

That night, I dived through my shoe collection.  I knew the next pair of shoes that I wanted worked on were work shoes.  Then, finally, I saw the old and inexpensive pair of Payless work shoes that were destined to be worked on next by this Tony fellow just up the road from me.  I placed them in a plastic bag and impatiently awaited for the next day to arrive so I could meet Tony and encounter this magical removable shoe lift option.  When I called Tony for directions to his repair store, he said in a heavy Italian accent over and over: "Right before 7 Eleven.  Store is right before 7 Eleven.  Maria, my wife, and I are before 7 Eleven." 

As soon as I saw the 7 Eleven, I parked there and then followed the numbers going down to track down Tony's Repair Shop.  Unlike the unease and uncertainty I felt with the leathered and weathered materials at the first shoe repair shop in Pleasantville, a big grin took over my face at the endless shoes tucked in cubby hole homes and materials and machinary all dedicated to shoes in Tony's Repair Shop.  Opera music boomed from the speakers.  I was sold.  I had found my Prince Charming Shoe Repair Man.  I blushed with thrill when I started to speak with this petite and yet pleasantly plump lady with soft tufts of white and gray hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and warm blue eyes about my friends recommending Tony to me.  Maria was this sweet woman's name.

She nodded and smiled gently, but then said loudly: "Tony, come here!  Look at these shoes!  See if you can work on them!"

Around turned this bald-headed and small gentleman who was around my height and in work clothes.  I had never met a man around my height.  I was intrigued. Tony shuffled awkwardly to the counter.  I smiled at him, but he barely acknowledged me.  Rather, his worked hands gingerly touched my black work shoes from Payless.  He held them like the more precious treasures ever imagineable.  He disappeared to this wheeled machine in the back of the store that was still visible to everyrone.  I impatiently waited for the verdict about a removable lift being placed on the left shoe.

Tony shuffled back slowly to me again, shook his head, and said in his thick Italian accent: "No.  Bottoms of shoes are plastic.  Not good material.  I waste your money and time to work on this.  Find another pair of shoes."

Shocked and bewildered, I could not believe that there was nothing he could do to these shoes.  Maria sensed my disappointment and shock.  She said: "Tony no lie.  If he can't work on, then he can't work on.  Perhaps find another pair and we go from there."

"I just can't believe that nothing can be done with these shoes," I protested.

"No lying.  Find another pair with better material like leather or rubber and will do a good job," Tony said with a crooked smile. 

I walked back to my car in the sticky heat.  I should have known that Payless Shoes would not work.  That night, I went through all my shoes again.  I absolutely knew that I had to have work shoes lifted as the weather was going to soon turn cold and I spent most of my time at work where physical shoe adjustment had to begin. 

A couple weeks ago, my sister and I had shopped at DSW and I bought a pair of Clark's work shoes, but I was hesitant to have them changed or modified at all because they were such new shoes and nothing that I wanted to throw out like I wanted to eventually throw out the Payless shoes. 

But, then, I reasoned as I held the brand new Clark's shoes in my hands: A removable lift will be added on to the left work shoe, so I was not going to have to eventually throw out these shoes.  I nodded with determination.

A couple days later, I returned to Tony and Maria.  

"Remember me?" I asked.

They nodded.  I took out the original packaged box that the shoes were still in.  I removed the cover and Tony and Maria peered in like little children with wide eyes.  Tony took out one of the shoes and went to the back at the wheeled machine again.  I was holding my breath in anticipation.  

Tony walked back to me, broke out into a smile, and said: "Yes, most possible.  Yes, can do." 

I exhaled and made an agreement with Tony and Maria that I would return a week later to pick up the finished left shoe with the removable lift.  The week is up.  Tomorrow is the day I pick up my left Clark's work shoe.  Tomorrow is the day that I hope my Cinderella Shoe Complex will be complete and fully fulfilled.  And, tomorrow is the day of beginnings of adjustment and preparation for my hip replacement surgery that looms in the very near future.  Here is to tomorrow.

Keep smilin' until we meet again,

Mary :-)