Swollen Appendages

Swollen and diabetic feet are all the rage, yet, it is very difficult to find socks and shoes to fit them. There are a few places with wide shoes or even a couple of pairs of double-wide tennis shoes in stock. However, it is next to impossible to find double and triple wide shoes at local main stream stores.

We gallivanted about in swollen feet donning bright red Christmas slippers to main stream stores throughout the NW. In search of triple wide shoes to places such as Sears, JC Penny’s, and Fred Meyer. We finally came up with some wide and unbinding socks at Fred Meyer, but still no shoes. I even checked out some of the larger specialty shoe stores, but to no avail. J.C. Penney’s did have a catalogue I could order from, but that would mean sloshing about in the puddles in bright red fuzzy Christmas slippers for 3 - 5 more days waiting for a pair of shoes which may or may not fit. Although people said my mother was cute in her bright red slippers, you try going out in your bright red Christmas slippers and see if people think you are cute. Do we suddenly become cute-as-a-pope (picture Andy Rooney in bright red Christmas slippers hiding behind his desk) after 80?

We still have an over-priced pair of shoes from a small specialty shoe store that the sales person insisted they could stretch to fit, yet they never quite stretched far enough, very expensive paper weights.

After a visit to my mothers hair dresser (where I learn a lot about this sort of thing) the other ladies told us they had gone to a small obscure shoe store. There we found a few double and triple wide shoes to choose from as well as that tight compression stocking hose thing to wear (so much to look forward to) to keep the fluid from seeping into the feet and ankles (another attractive and cumbersome item to wear along with the hearing aids).

If medicine can’t figure out how to “fix” our flaws and pump the fluid from our swollen appendages before I get there, I hope the University’s can pump out some decent ergonomic designers who can make a good fitting shoe which is also attractive, should I be so lucky to live that long. Do the manufacturers of these “bricks” think that ladies no longer care about what they look like once their feet are the size of bratwurst sausages?

We have now traded the cute-as-a-pope bright red $10.00 Christmas slippers for a pair of $100+ black bricks and a pair of ted hose (hmmmm maybe cute isn’t so bad). I am sure these shoes will wear like iron and last a “life-time”. Maybe cute-as-a-pope slippers should be the hot fashion trend.

It is all the rage to have diabetic and swollen feet – you would think that stores would want to accommodate the millions of people who need them and are willing to spend e-gads amount of money for them. When you need them, you need them. You don’t want to take days prancing about the NW in your cute-as-a-pope fuzzy bright red Christmas slippers sloshing about in mud puddles in search of them. It is time for main stream stores to accommodate this fast growing fashion trend. This is not mere kindness, just good business sense.

By the time you roll up the compression hose, strap the triple wide bricks onto your feet, figure out how to find the hidden trap door for the hearing aid battery, and figure out where you left your walker, BINGO is over anyway.