Is She Poor Widdle Becs? Oo, 'es She Is.

Four and half years ago, I sprained my ankle. MD was living here at the time. I was traipsing merrily down the steps, missed one and went shrieking down the rest, to land all my considerable weight squarely atop my out-turned right ankle.

MD came running. I checked myself for broken things before moving. And then I saw my ankle. Within the space of about a minute, it became three times its normal size and a shade of blue that should only be seen in marbled bookend papers.

I went to the doc in the box (the same one who couldn't diagnose Cat Scratch Fever) because my lousy insurance accepted them. The doctor x-rayed my foot. I was hobbling around and because I was biting the inside of my cheek fairly hard, didn't cry.

Dr. Ahmed studied my foot from many different directions and finally put an extremely flimsy AirCast on it and said, "I don't trust you on crutches, so off you go." (Middle finger salute to you, bub.)

The next day was the start of a temp gig that I desperately hoped would turn into something permanent. I knew I couldn't call in sick, although the doctor had told me to stay off my foot. So I bandaged the thing as best I could, took more Tylenol than I should and made my way verrry slowwwly into the office.

Months passed. Years passed. And I kept getting these weird twinges in my ankle. The doc in the box rolled his eyes and said, "There's nothing wrong, but if you insist on seeing an orthopedist..." and wrote a referral to someone in The Hood. I didn't go.

Another year passed. I finally have decent insurance, so I made an appointment with one of the guys recognized as one of the best orthopedic surgeons in Jersey. He looked at the x-rays he had taken and said, "There's nothing wrong. I don't know, maybe there's a little splinter or something we could get out arthroscopically, but I'm not seeing anything."

So take I took all these x-rays and my hobbling bad-ass self to a podiatrist in the same medical group as Dr. Macho. He had x-rays taken and when he came into the room with them, looked pale. He seemed to barely stop short of saying, "OMFG!"

"There is definitely something wrong here. I wish you had come to me first. You tore three ligaments and the way they've healed has made your ankle unstable." (Woo hoo! Another unstable part of me!) "So we'll try cortisone, and we'll try something else, and after that is surgery."

I said, "Can't I just buy some ugly shoes?"

He said it wouldn't really do any good.

I have to admit, I was so, so impressed when he walked into the room and the first place on my ankle he touched was exactly, precisely where I've been telling doctors for four years that it hurts. "How did you do that?" I said. "How did you know? No one else could find it."

"There's a lot of scar tissue in there. That's why it hurts."

And he said I have plantar fasciitis in both feet, too, then put cortisone shots into my feet (I repeat, put hypodermic needles into the insides of my bare-naked unprotected feet), and suddenly, I had warm plaster of paris gauze soaking on my feet, to have orthotics made. I would much rather have the ugly shoes. They're cheaper, if my insurance company doesn't cough up the bucks for this.

And then I was having weird tape put all over my feet and sent on my way until next week, when I get more cortisone shot into my feet. Then we start on my ankle.

Look, if I means I can walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from Penn Station again, I am all for it. This guy better deliver.

My feet still hurt, but in a different way. I have to keep the tape on for two days, so tomorrow when I shower, I have been advised to duct tape grocery bags onto my ankles.

I mean it. This had better work.

Oh - and a miracle occurred overnight. Boris is back to his old self and I am now ever-vigilant to keep the water bowls clean and filled and the cat boxes scooped.

So we're getting better. Slowly. But better.