Going to the shoe store has become one of my worst nightmares. Not everyone sells the shoes in the width that I need. In fact, there are only two stores in the Birmingham metro area that sell shoes in my size.
For those who are new here, I have Charcot. Charcot is a condition that makes my bones brittle. Two years ago, I unknowingly broke my right foot. It couldn’t be a normal break; it had to be broken in several places. What makes it worse, I didn’t know that it was broken for a couple of weeks. I have neuropathy in both feet, so I have no feeling. I only noticed when my foot was swollen so bad that my foot no longer fit in the shoe.
To make a long story short, I was in a splint for 3 weeks, a cast for eight weeks, and a boot for another ten weeks. My right foot is a 10.5 6E, and my left foot is a 9.5 3E. No, I don’t purchase two separate shoe sizes. I just purchase the larger size, and the orthotics take care of the fitting in my left foot.
So far, I’ve only found one store that sells the shoe that really fits me. It’s a New Balance style 907. They only make that shoe in one color: white. After about a month, the shoes are no longer white but a dingy gray.
Last year we tried to purchase a different-style shoe, same size and width, only to find that it caused massive blisters. I had to send the shoes back.
I went to the shoe store yesterday to purchase some new shoes because the others were falling apart. I purchased another style of shoe because I wanted a color other than white. I finally got around to putting them on a couple of hours ago, and I already know that these will be going back because they hurt my feet.
After spending nearly $200 on these shoes, I expect them to fit a little better and not hurt my feet. They act like they are simply not wide enough. I’m not sure if they make a 7E or not.
I guess I’ll be finding out tomorrow when I take these shoes back.
It’s after midnight as I write this, and I just finished my fourth cup of coffee. Yes, I know. But it’s been a very stressful day, and in my opinion, I deserve my one and only vice. Some people turn to alcohol. Some turn to recreational drugs. Me? I turn to coffee.
It really started last night when I fell asleep in my recliner and didn’t wake up until nearly 1:30 this morning. Not long afterward, I was awakened by my four-legged “daughter,” who apparently believes that 4 a.m. is the perfect time to start her day. She wanted food, snacks, and water—in that order.
I eventually managed to fall back asleep and didn’t wake up until around 7:30 a.m. That’s late for me since I’m usually up by 5:30 a.m., whether I want to be or not.
I knew I had a doctor’s appointment at 1:30 p.m., and I wanted to get some yard work done before I had to leave. My plan was to change the filament on my 3D printer and start a print job that would take most of the day. After fighting with it for more than an hour, however, I concluded that I had ordered the wrong filament.
Just as I was getting ready to head upstairs and put on my shoes for yard work, I heard water dripping into the garage from above.
I immediately called upstairs to my wife to turn off anything that was using water. She couldn’t hear me, so I ended up opening the garage door and yelling up the stairwell.
The dripping stopped.
After cleaning up some of the water, I made enough room to get a closer look at where the pipes came through the floor. At first glance, it appeared the water wasn’t coming from a pipe leak at all. It seemed to be leaking from around the pipe and coming from somewhere upstairs.
I ran upstairs to check the washing machine. Everything was dry.
Back downstairs.
After studying the direction of the pipes for a moment, I finally realized the leak wasn’t under the laundry room. It was under our bathroom, farther down the hall.
Back upstairs.
I checked under the sink. Dry.
Back downstairs.
At this point, I instructed my wife to start turning on faucets and flushing toilets while I stood downstairs watching for signs of water.
She turned on the faucets.
Nothing.
Then she flushed the toilet.
That’s when I heard, “The water’s not going down!”
A few seconds later came, “It’s about to overflow!”
BINGO!
The toilet had clogged and overflowed. Water was escaping around the base of the toilet and finding its way downstairs through the floor.
I quickly made my way upstairs and managed to get the toilet unclogged before things got much worse.
A couple of quick notes. When I said I was “running” upstairs and downstairs, that was really just a figure of speech. With my foot the way it is, I can’t run anywhere. A more accurate description would be that I was quickly limping from one floor to the other.
By the time we got everything cleaned up, it was time to leave for my doctor’s appointment on the other side of town. The yard work never happened, the 3D printer never got started, and my carefully planned day was officially shot. Apparently, the toilet had other ideas.
The ablation went as planned. I’m sore, which is expected. From what I’ve been told, tomorrow will probably be worse before it gets better. Even so, I can already tell a slight difference in the way I sit and stand.
They say it can take up to three weeks to experience the full effects of the procedure. I’ve been dealing with this pain for more than three months now, so I suppose another three weeks isn’t going to make much difference.
Still, after today, I think I’ve earned that fourth cup of coffee.
The story you’re about to read is 100% true. Every embarrassing second of it. It’s a little long, but if you hang in there, I promise the ending is worth it. It wasn’t funny at the time, but years later it has become one of my favorite stories to tell — mostly because I survived it and now get to pretend it was all intentional. Feel free to share it if you want a good laugh at my expense.
Before I developed Charcot in my right foot, I was pretty active outdoors. I loved hiking. As a kid, I’d throw random “essentials” into a backpack and disappear into the woods for hours. As an adult… those “essentials” eventually included a CPAP machine and a battery roughly the size of a car engine. Overnight hikes became less “Boy Scout” and more “mobile medical unit.”
So on troop outings, I usually stayed at base camp while the boys went on two- or three-day hikes. Someone had to guard the coolers, make sure nothing caught fire, and most importantly, be available if things went sideways.
Luckily, our troop had a couple of HAM radio operators — me being one of them. We always brought radios so the hiking group could stay in touch with base camp. If something went wrong, I could meet them at a trailhead, resupply, or help with medical needs.
It was a perfect plan.
Which should’ve been my first warning.
One fall morning, we drove about two hours to Cheaha State Park, home of the tallest mountain in Alabama — Mount Cheaha, standing a mighty 2,407 feet above sea level. Not Everest, but tall enough to make you question your life choices halfway up.
The plan was simple: the boys would hike to a shelter, stay the night, then finish the trail in the morning and meet me at the campground. Since the shelter was only a couple of miles from the campground, I decided I’d hike in later, eat supper with them, then hike back out before dark.
What could possibly go wrong?
I packed my meal, stove, fuel, water, snacks, electronic compass, hiking stick, and my brand-new handheld HAM radio. I crossed the road to the trailhead and hiked about half a mile before realizing I never turned on my GPS.
Already off to a strong start.
I stopped, turned it on, and waited several minutes for it to find satellites. This tiny decision — made by a man who thought he was prepared — would later become very important.
I reached the shelter without any trouble and, to my surprise, beat the troop there. Since there was no campfire planned, I picked up trash, did a little cleaning, and eventually lay down for a nap.
I woke up to the sound of teenage boys… which is about as subtle as a herd of raccoons falling down a metal staircase.
They set up tents, cooked supper (some of them apparently training for MasterChef: Backcountry Edition, others surviving exclusively on PB&J and processed sugar), and after everything was cleaned to my Scoutmaster standards, I realized it was getting late. Later than I wanted.
But I wasn’t worried.
I had a headlamp. I had a GPS. I had a radio. I had confidence.
Nature loves confidence.
That weekend, the Penhoti 100-mile challenge was happening. Runners were everywhere, and HAM operators were stationed at checkpoints along the trails. I’d spent part of the afternoon listening to them check runners in.
Dark came fast, but I made it back to the road with no problem. I crossed it, expecting the campground to be right there.
It was not.
I walked… and walked… and walked… until I came to a creek. A wide one. A deep one. A very “this creek was absolutely NOT in the brochure” kind of creek.
The other leaders knew when I left and when I should’ve been back. I was supposed to radio in when I arrived.
That time had come and gone.
I didn’t want to admit I hadn’t made it back. Not because I was in danger — but because Scoutmasters don’t get lost.
I wasn’t lost.
I just had absolutely no idea where I was.
Then my radio crackled.
“Break… break…”
“We have a lost Scoutmaster somewhere between the Chenebee Silent Trail shelter and Turnipseed Campground.”
There are moments in life when your soul leaves your body.
That was one of them.
I keyed my mic and gave my call sign.
Nothing.
Tried again.
Still nothing.
That’s when I realized the problem. I had the right frequency… but forgot to set the correct PL tone. Without it, my radio might as well have been a walkie-talkie from the dollar store.
So there I stood, alone in the woods, listening to a search for myself… while being completely unable to tell anyone that I was, in fact, the idiot they were discussing.
I decided my best option was to retrace my steps back to the road and follow it to the campground entrance. It took nearly an hour — an hour during which I listened to HAM operators coordinate efforts to locate… me.
I eventually reached my truck and immediately found the nearest checkpoint. The operator was mid-conversation with the shelter when I broke in.
I have never heard relief like that come through a radio.
The next morning, when the troop arrived, there were many questions. And for years afterward, there were many reminders.
Ironically, that HAM operator later became one of my closest friends. Another story for another time.
Looking back, I learned a few things.
As a Scoutmaster, I broke the most basic rule: never go alone. Always have a buddy.
As a HAM radio operator, I failed to check my equipment before leaving home.
And because of that, I earned a title that will follow me forever:
“The lost Scoutmaster… who absolutely, positively, was not lost.”
Grayfeathersblog 