Today it’s welcome to the rock pile. If you’ve come this far, bear with me as I go backward to go forward:

Somewhere in 2007, while playing a round of golf with a old friend, Rudy Gilly, as I was changing shoes, I realized I couldn’t bend the way I had at the start of the round. I wrote it off to being older. The next few months passed and it got worse. Having ripped the patella tendons in both knees in 1993, I assumed it was simply time and that things were getting worse. I sought out a rheumatologist who diagnosed me as having arthritis in my knees and proceeded to give me all kinds of shots. As it turned out, this very nice man was not really on point as none of it helped, in fact, it kept getting worse, so I proceeded to get a second opinion of another orthopedist who did say he didn’t see the reason for the pain I was in, though he did see a small amount of arthritis but not enough to cause the pain, though he did say he could replace both knees.

Given as how that is a big decision I went for a third opinion, and this time the doctor immediately upon seeing me walk said…NOPE, not knees it’s your hips, he took Xrays and showed me how it was bone on bone and not the knees and that yes, the hips needed to be replaced. But he was concerned about doing it since I had become so incredibly large.

That led me to Mark Figgie at HSS in NYC on the reco of a friend whose son had his hips replaced by him after chemo had destroyed them. He had no concern and was quick to add, “I’ve done replacements on folks much larger than you”…so in 2009 (yes it took that long to get there) I had first one hip done and then the other and lo and behold, the pain was gone…as were the bottles of oxycontin and vicodin the other doctors had prescribed to ameliorate the pain (they did work and yes, it was tough to finally get totally off them…20 mg two to three times a day on oxy and simultaneously 1500 mg two to three times a day of vicodin and even at that the pain was just barely managed). Then, in 2015, now being able to be mobile, I took the leap to have gastric sleeve surgery as my weight was still not coming down, regardless of the steps. That worked!!

As the weight came off I started to have more energy and become more active, I started to walk a lot, and to jog again (I’d always enjoyed what I called “running”), and ultimately in October of 2016, I ran and finished the SoNo Half Marathon (the last person finished but I did finish and it remains one of my proudest personal accomplishments). I started to play a lot of golf again, ran almost every day, enjoyed 2-3 mile walks with Abbey THE dog and was very grateful for the increased energy and pain free mobility.

When we moved to Bluffton, SC in August 2021, I kept up the walking and running, I was doing around 3 miles 4 days a week running, and walking Abbey THE dog on other days (the heat and humidity half the year did dictate a bit of slowing that pace down). Then the community pool finally opened in August 2023 and I started to swim laps again (something else I’ve loved since Uncle Dominic P. Starace taught me to swim when I was about 8 years old). Then, since the pool is unheated, it closed on Nov 1, 2023 so I started to walk and jog again…a funny thing happened during that transition….

I started to feel some pain in my lower right leg, and even regular use of my TheraGun didn’t seem to help, so finally, about a month ago I make an appt with a local orthopedist my primary care recommended….

Here comes the rockpile part…..

There was nothing wrong with my knees or hips, but genetics being what they are (I’ve always had flat feet, and as a kid wore “special shoes” for a while), I was quickly diagnosed with yet more arthritis…this time in my foot. Unlike the other instances, there is no surgical repair and no magic pill bullet…this time the only help will be the custom orthotics that are in the process of being made. In the meantime, walking anything more than 1/2 mile is an exercise in agony (it had a significant impact on a much looked forward to trip to New Orleans as that is a totally walking city), my energy both physical and mental is back to the same rock bottom as when I was Jabba the Hut prior to sleeve surgery, I WANT to move, I WANT to run, I WANT to be able to play a full round of golf, but at the moment it’s looking in the mirror and seeing a old man only getting older. Having regained my energy and mobility and activity only 8 years back, I’m really having a hard time.

If you’ve read this far, do me a favor, if you’ve read before, you know I consider myself the house agnostic, so prayers don’t really cut it for me, however, if you could maybe raise a glass or two and if we both do that, perhaps the universe will find a way to have these orthotics help and refill my energy and activity buckets…and maybe I can climb out of my own head with that increase…