Dress Shoes

I really like dress shoes.  They are sleek, sometimes a little glamorous, and they make me feel especially assertive with the sharp click, click, click of my stride.  There’s something uplifting about swaying my hips over a pair of satin stilettos.

Of course, I didn‘t always have these sentiments.  As a child, I was an absolute sneaker fan -with a closet empty of anything else.  On the rare occasion I did encounter dress shoes, usually for adult events like cocktail parties or weddings, they weren’t the real thing, but just a safe imitation.  There were times I wondered about the real ones out of curiosity, and I would secretly stumble a few steps in some pumps even though they never fit.

Dress shoes eluded me until high school, when I got my first pair of heels.  They were modestly attractive: dark grey leather and lined with blue silk.  I slipped them on over stockings and enjoyed them for short trips here and there.  There was something very exciting and mature about wearing those shoes for the quick walk to class or to the dining hall for Formal Dinner.

Until something unplanned happened.

At that time I went to boarding school, and one day I decided to walk from my campus to the nearby town.  My heels hadn’t bothered me during class, so I thought nothing of them when I started my little excursion.  Three miles later, standing on the bridge between my dormitory and the town, I had to peel the shoes from my swollen, bloody feet.

That’s thing with dress shoes -sometimes, unexpectedly, they give you blisters.

I did not know better at that age.  I did not think to wear moleskin instead of stockings, did not think to avoid heels altogether.  So I got blisters.  Minor ones, initially, so I rinsed them out, went to bed with bare feet, and then continued my daily grind.

There was some trouble with the fact that my feet could not tolerate any of my shoes.  A bandage and some Neosporin did little to relieve the worsening sores, and eventually the pain was so bad I couldn’t even pull on jeans without hissing through clenched teeth.  I went to see the school physician.

A stranger in a white coat told me that my blisters had developed little inside blisters and that I would need to have the skin cut open to allow the infected area to drain.  I would also need some antibiotics.  A simple, same-day procedure that was as unsurprisingly expensive as any other medical treatment.

My medical insurance, oddly enough, would not cover my blister problem.  Even though I could barely get to class and had to take leave from work (as I could no longer adhere to certain requirements), I would have to pay for everything out of pocket.  Frustratingly enough, as a student without a job, I did not have the money.

Since I thought the store was partly responsible for my blisters, as they had sold me the dress shoes, I looked for help on their part.  The sales associate informed me the surgery was my business and that he only felt obligated to offer store credit.  Maybe I could survive for the time being in some tennis shoes, he suggested.  But I did not want to hobble around in tennis shoes and wait for the blisters to scar over, I wanted the blisters gone.  I wanted to get back to class comfortably, I wanted to go back to my job.

How could my insurance cover seasonal allergy medication, a mild annoyance, but not something so completely debilitating?

I called my mother for some support.  She was only partially sympathetic.  As a woman who was equally prone to blisters as myself, she had some experience with the same troubles.  In her day, however, she had chosen to enjoy the time off required to let the blisters heal naturally, nursing the wounds with careful attention day after day.  She had been able to see something rewarding in the situation.  But my mother was a different person from myself, and I could not discern anything suitable for me in this situation.

My feet got worse.  They became so swollen and unfamiliar to me that I had to sacrifice more daily activities.  I said goodbye to my swim team and the winter production of Pippin.  I felt a bit blue, then a little ill, and finally pretty sick.  Just a little desperate, I called the doctor’s office in town and asked for an appointment.  It was a free clinic and I needed their help.

Another white coat examined my enlarged and tender feet.  We talked a little.

“Must be exciting to have an excuse to miss class, right?” the doctor prompted, a little amused but trying to reassure me.

“No,” I answered honestly.  Missing class only seemed alright until I tried to jump back into the material and did not understand any of it.  The reply was an unconvincing, congratulatory, “We’ve got a smart one here!” 
I wanted to ask, if I was so smart, then why didn’t anyone seem inclined to help me pay for the treatment?  It was medically uncomplicated and could prevent a lot of hassle and future expenses, so why was it so difficult to finance?

The clinic doctor finished with my feet and quietly informed me that the blisters were past a simple repair.  They had grown so infected that the blisters on my blisters now had blisters and that I was risking blood poisoning without serious attention.  Blood poisoning would not stop at my feet, but rather affect my entire body.  It was a life-threatening condition, so I had to confront it.

A large bill was unavoidable and I was out of options, so I turned to my parents for help.  There was a lot of fuss and questioning: why didn’t I protect my feet better? Why wear those heels at all?
Well, I thought my protection was enough, and how was avoiding dress heels completely, realistically valid any way?

I wanted someone to answer my questions.  Why wasn’t I able to get financial help for my emergency?  My blisters did not start as fully developed blood poisoning, why couldn’t I get the simple treatment for them when they were still solitary, elementary things?  How was I, a cerebral and fully functioning being, manipulated into submitting to mindlessly infected blisters?

My education, my work, my body, my finances all changed and I hadn’t been able to get any help to prevent such from happening.

Thankfully, I was born into a privileged life, and so this little episode did not derail my life.  I was able to recover and advance as I had always hoped.  The thing is, not every girl is so lucky, though every one should be.