Sole Survivor: My Life, One Step at a Time

Footwear and shoes and journeys have been in my info stream (and on my mind) a lot lately. First, I stumbled onto a very fine column about shoes and MS written by Jennifer Powell (Exchanging a Sole for a Soul). Her essay resonated with me. Like Ms. Powell, one of the early manifestations of progressive MS (and foot drop) I experienced was the weird inability to keep a flip-flop sandal on my foot (not enough “toe grip”). This was a drag, because I only recently had purchased a nice leather pair — far nicer than any others I had ever owned, and bought only because they were drastically reduced in price — and it was  obvious they soon would become obsolete, at least for me.

In a funny and powerful way, Powell’s shoes led to a cathartic experience and she shared what can be a sneaky benefit of MS: “Self-actualization came at a cost, the price being multiple sclerosis.” I’ll be honest — self-actualization prompted by MS is a work in progress for me, and I found her piece to be a very inspirational read.

Then came Searching for My Summer Sole Mate, a story on Slate about the pros and cons of shoe shopping with a podiatrist, along with the podiatrist’s recommendations for smart summertime footwear. The long and short of that story is the podiatrist (shockingly!) recommends shoes with some structure and shares her current preference for Stan Smith sneakers made by Adidas. The tennis-playing Smith won two Grand Slam tennis titles in the early 1970s, quite an accomplishment, but not necessarily the stuff of legends. (I’m old enough to remember him playing.) The tennis-shoe Stan Smith, meanwhile, has had a longer-lasting impact, selling 50 million pairs of the “saltine cracker of tennis shoes” by 2016.

The truth is my shoes and feet are never far from my thoughts. Progressive MS and related foot drop have transformed my right foot and leg into a slow-rolling, outward-turning, heavy mess. Shoes with any kind of stiffness or structure are hard to wear (my ankle rolls to the outside as does my foot, cramming my toes against the insides of my shoes). Plus, my balance is sketchy, so I prefer shoes with some give that let me “feel” the ground more acutely. A barefoot existence — at least where subzero winter temperatures are common — simply isn’t practical.

I own maybe 10 pairs of shoes, most either long-retired running shoes (my last run was in 2010 or so), a couple of pairs of chukka-style boots and some general-use sneakers, including a couple of old Nike Free running shoes that I bought to wear to the gym. Slowly, I’ve retired most of my old shoes because they’re not comfortable anymore or don’t do enough to help me feel the floor, or both.

Two years ago, I bought an ankle foot orthotic (AFO). Useful devices for addressing some of the effects of foot drop, AFOs also demand significant real estate inside the wearer’s shoe and seem really uncomfortable to me. When I was originally fitted with the AFO, my orthotist told me I’d need to experiment with shoes to accommodate it, noting I might need shoes a half- or full-size larger to make wearing the device more tolerable. Over time, I’ve purchased newer, larger-sized shoes for use with the AFO, but now my right leg isn’t strong enough to lift the AFO anymore.

Somewhere along the line, I repurposed an old pair of Nike Free shoes to wear in our garden, where I wobble and try to water our flowers without falling down. Walking in the yard or dirt is especially hard, and I customized the shoes by removing the shoestrings and insoles to make them easier to get in and out of, to make them slightly more forgiving and to heighten the tactile sensation between the bottom of my tingly feet and the inconsistency of the ground.

Like so many other lessons I’ve learned in my life, I’m kind of embarrassed by how long it took for me to see the obvious. About six weeks ago, I purchased a new pair of Nike Frees, hoping upon hope they’d help my balance and be comfortable enough to wear for long stretches of time. I’ve barely taken them off since I received them; in fact, all of the recent content focused on shoes and footwear has come while I await a new, “dressier” pair of the shoes that might be slightly more appropriate for “business casual” wear.

By no means am I recommending anyone run out and buy this shoe or that one, and I sure don’t receive compensation from Nike. I’m saying only that MS — for me, anyway — is a constant battle, but one that does yield victories and benefits and some very real silver linings.

As Powell aptly wrote: “Upheaval in life is inevitable, but until you meet it with an openness to change, stagnation will perpetuate. I was ready for change and the shoes were but a symptom, the multiple sclerosis the storm. Amid the deluge, I stood still. I let my vanity wash away and intrinsically felt whole. I felt both a sense of calm as well as the desire for action.”

The truth is, with or without MS, we’re all on the same journey in life in so many ways. How we take it is up to each of us. I’m just grateful that, for the time being at least, I’ve found the right shoes to wear while I’m making mine.

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