It turned out we arrived early, though I needed to use a bathroom and yet the office was locked for lunch. Fortunately, there was a Starbucks nearby and I used the facility there. Since using the facility of a place you don't actually use the service of is bad form (if it's even allowed at all), I bought the smallest iced mocha they had (I don't know sizes that well--12 ounce?), which was acceptable at a little under $5.
We arrived just in time for the place to be open, allowing for an earlier appointment and processing of paperwork. While there in the lobby, I discovered my water bottle inside of my shoebag might have had a slight leak, but the hope of mine is that the lid just came slightly off of what it should be and that it's now fixed. (Otherwise I'm gonna have a wet shoebag since I put it back in.)
We also met a couple of old ladies who, by coincidence, I later saw entering a completely different building in an entirely different city down the line. (We went to Snohomish after our appointment in Everett--we were there for my dad to buy cider for tonight; presumably, they were there to pick up an antibiotic of some kind but since I was in the car when I spotted them later I couldn't exactly hear them conversing.)
Anyway, as for the actual appointment: I told the assistant the problem with my feet. Getting new orthodics was a secondary purpose behind the visit, with the primary reason to be taking care of the pain, which I described in some level of detail, and also gave the length of time this had happened and how it was getting worse rather than better in spite of me doing less and less.
The foot doctor when he came in kept the actual analysis of my feet very brief. He did take a look at me and ask me a few questions (namely, whether I wore shoes inside of my house; I do not), and came to a rather quick conclusion. He made an unusual suggestion: for me to buy specialized shoes that I could wear inside, comfortable yet offering support, more or less.
Presumably, he believes the problem to be how much I walk around barefooted. And to be fair, he's probably right. I was told that he is a really, really good foot doctor if you tell him everything and while directly to his face I didn't quite get the chance I did divulge I'm pretty sure all the important information to his assistant who should then have carried the info on to him, so he should know everything.
More than that, I know from personal experience how much he'd be right. I walk on the pool deck as part of work. I walk in my house all the time. I am really really really fond of pacing back and forth to the point of it being instinctual. I stand a lot and so on and so forth--even cutting down on such things I still do them often. So if he says that those special shoes should help, he's probably correct.
The rest of the visit was spent on the secondary concern, my orthotics. I got them years ago, so there was the concern both that my feet could have changed/grown and that the orthotics could have worn down. He didn't really give me a verbal answer about the state of my feet (he did give my feet a lookover at least a couple of times so he was examining my feet meaning he was looking at things and not relying on just my verbal description), but did confirm that the orthotic--while mostly okay--was beginning to have the arches degrade. (A problem since I have high-arch feet.)
So we took scans of my feet which will be used to craft a new orthotic in 2-3 weeks, something I anticipate will be placed in my new shoes. In the mean time, we've got this other special shoe which I can't remember the name of to buy, which will hopefully help me out. (It was described to me as being completely rubber, and like a sandal, except something else. I don't quite remember what the 'something else' was, but I was told there are two variants, one which goes between toes and another which has a strap over the feet; the version with a strap over the feet can be worn with socks.)
Basically it's something I could wear on the pool deck, at home, and other various places. What exactly it'd be, not quite sure but we have a coupon at a certain store for the product so it shouldn't be that hard for me to actually get what I need since we can once at that store if it's not immediately obvious just ask an attendant essentially and from there get guidance to what I do need.
When this will happen, don't know exactly. But while I didn't get any hard answers from the podiatrist, I think that following his advice has an actually-realistic chance of helping. I'll have a baseline for what is and isn't working as well when we get the shoe and the orthodic. Worst-case scenario where the pain doesn't go away, we go back, explain the issue is still there, and tell him how long it's been since we tried his solution.
We'll just have to wait and see I guess. Hopes are high. It's something we'll have to look into. But anyway. Tonight was family night. My sister came, so it was all five of us who're in this state--my mom is, of course, still visiting her family. I don't know how long that will last exactly; I think a week and a half or so but I also don't remember when exactly she left (it was in the middle of a date with one of my girlfriends, at 3 AM), meaning I don't know when she'll be back.
But anyway. We ended up watching the film Fargo--it was pitched to us as being a comedy. From a...certain...point of view, you could say that was true. But I was skeptical it'd be something my family would enjoy because I was pretty sure it wasn't really actually a comedy. (They agreed with my assessment after the film.) My vote was for The Lion King (believe it or not, not actually my suggestion!), but I got outvoted and overruled, so I just sighed and went along with it.
Ironically enough I was probably the member of the family who got the most enjoyment out of the film because to me it was okay (just not great), whereas the rest of the family had an active dislike of it. There were many a comments of "We should have gone with The Lion King", and even "Shawn of the Dead was better, and Shawn of the Dead wasn't good". (Again, family consensus more than my own, though I have to admit much of the humor for that film is something I just wasn't enthused by since me not being from the United Kingdom a lot of the things which would enhance the viewing experience were lost on me.)
I liked Fargo enough to get addicted to a bit of a troping sprawl on the film actually, in that I had zero TVTropes tabs open prior to the film; over five hours later, I've reduced it down to five tabs open. (Admittedly most of those are short pages and none of them really link to anything I'd also add to the reading pile, butstill.) But I do admit, I would have preferred The Lion King for some personal bias reasons.
That being said, I think it was an okay film to have seen once. Past this point, definitely woulda gone The Lion King over it. (Though next time we've got this group I should remember to suggest the film Mastermind since that's a film I've wanted to watch ever since I first saw it advertised yet I keep on forgetting about its existence. Hey, they almost watched The Lion King, so why not?)
And yeah, that's pretty much been my day. With it being close to the time most people would start their Saturday, I should wrap my Friday up and go to bed. I'm at just about the point where my midnight coffee has worn out and I'm actually feeling sleepy. (Which makes sense since if I remember correctly, one of my family members remembers reading an article which stated that science had basically proven that coffee can disrupt sleep for five hours after consumption; it's been over five hours so the caffeine should no longer be impacting me, at least in theory. It certainly FEELS like it no longer is.)