Sneakers, surgeries, spirals and of course, MS
“Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?
I see the way you’re acting like you’re somebody else gets me frustrated.”
This chorus has been bleating into my brain all July.
Apparently, Avril Lavigne wrote this song about a boyfriend. But the rest of the lyrics don’t back her up.
The guy in the song isn’t complicated at all.
He’s just a tool.
Avril was only 18 when she wrote it so maybe now that she’s grown up some, she’s realized that there are some jerks in the dating world and there are no complications about it.
No, I think the real lyric she was aiming for was “…acting like your SOMETHING else gets me frustrated.”
Because it seems that way with even the easiest things these days.
Everything is so damn complicated!
Like, just buying sneakers.
Used to be, you need new sneakers you go to Bradlees and pick out a pair for a reasonable amount of cash.
(Bradlees. How badly am I dating myself?)
But no, buying sneakers for me this summer has been a complex web consisting of several weeks of shopping, hours of conversation, research and decisions, six stores, two fittings and three returns, two in a store and one by mail. The crux of this was my need to save money and upcoming foot surgery, again.
I had MTP3 Joint Fusion surgery in April of 2025. In January of 2026 several winter snow days let me know that my foot size had changed and neither pair of winter boots fit anymore. I wore them anyway because I needed them and who goes boot shopping when it’s snowing and you need to wear boots to look for boots.
No longer fitting boots lead to a blister, which lead to bursitis, which lead to an infection, which lead to an abscess that antibiotics aren’t healing which leads to surgery to remove the MTP3 surgery hardware to get everything all sorted and healed.
Phew!
The surgeon recommended I now wear wide width shoes to protect my injured and seemingly fragile feet. I ordered some- they didn’t fit.
I went to a huge sneaker store and picked out a pair of adorable sneakers with cute flowers on them. The store had every size imaginable, including wide widths and I tried them all. I walked around the huge store for a bit, just to make sure I got the right ones. I brought them home, wore them on a short walk and my feet were swimming in them. And since it was a buy one, get one half off deal, there were two pairs of shoes in my apartment that I could not wear.
I tried to return them but since the cute pair were worn, I could only get store credit. Again, I picked out a pair, tried them on and walked around. I used the credit to get those, but I really didn’t like them. I now had a receipt for a new pair of shoes I didn’t like and went to another store to return them.
I’m still waiting for that return. Maybe it serves me right as it was a bit of a scam, using shoes bought with store credit to attempt a return.
Next, I went to a store that specializes in fancy footwear and got sized. Turns out the problem was the wide width thing. I didn’t need a wider size shoe but a longer size shoe post first surgery and in anticipation of the second. But their shoes were ugly and expensive and were recommended best with $1500 inserts!
(Even with the best shoe fairy imaginable, there’s no way.)
Finally, my real shoe fairy found another store where I was sized again, picked out a pair and walked out happy with attractive, comfortable albeit expensive sneakers, that I refer to as gold-plated due to the cost and am too afraid to wear in case I mess them up too much. I’ve had to get over that quickly; one needs shoes, especially when one is horrified to learn that one is having foot issues.
Then there’s the surgery itself.
When to have it?
Who should I bother for a ride for something minor that should not even be necessary, but it is?
And then there’s signing up for the surgeon’s patient portal to be added as well as the portal for the surgical care center where the surgery will be. That is in addition to my primary doctor’s patient portal and my neurologist’s patient portal.
When I signed up to the surgery center’s portal the portal wouldn’t let me scroll down to complete the registration. I called the office and they said they had never heard of that before.
Of course they hadn’t.
A nurse had to call me to register me and get everything squared away. Now I am in four patient portals that each send me a message via text and an email for everything! Including when they communicate with each other.
And while all this keeps me busy and singing Complicated in my brain, it is at least distracting me from the issue that this beach town resident can’t go to the beach because of the bad foot, at least not casually in a beachy kind of way.
(Who goes to the beach wearing bandages and gold-plated sneakers?)
It all just seems to swirl and spiral together in one complicated and confusing mess.
Remember when summer spirals were fun?
Spin art.
Spirographs.
Carnival rides like Twister.
Rotini, the best in pasta spirals.
While I look at these spirals fondly, not all spirals are good. Tornados and hurricane watches come to mind this time of year.
But these frustrating spirals fall somewhere in between on the spiral spectrum, and they are wiping me out!
I feel like the image of Alice in Wonderland as she spirals down the rabbit hole and speaking of Wonderland, I wonder why it all gets so complicated.
When did buying sneakers turn into something more involved than just, say, buying sneakers?
And you may be wondering what all of this has to do with an MS humor blog.
While the foot is at the center of the spiral, multiple sclerosis insisted on spiraling in too.
Since the foot is maybe infected, I can’t have my monthly MS infusion.
They had to be put on hold. But to resume without delay when the surgeon says my foot is infection free, I still had to see my neurologist.
So what? That’s easy; appointments I can do.
I love my neurologist, Dr. B, and have been with him for over ten years. I love him so much, I told everyone I knew how great he was. And then they told everyone they knew. And so on. And then his practice got big. It got so big he moved his office to a new location he called a Center rather than an office. He hired nurse practioners to help him and then arranged for me to meet one as it would be good for me so I wouldn’t have to wait too long to see him if he was busy.
I called to make an appointment with my neurology NP, so I won’t have to delay my infusions too long but was told she has left the practice. I got assigned to a new one. Once there, the new NP told me she was going on maternity leave soon but not to worry as she would assign me to Dr. R, who could see me while she was having a baby.
“Why can’t I see Dr. B? He’s my actual neurologist anyway.”
“Oh, Dr. B isn’t scheduling appointments anymore.”
“But I just saw him in the hallway.”
“Oh yes, he’s here. But he doesn’t schedule appointments.”
Confused?
I know.
It’s complicated…
