Daily Archives: January 5, 2009

General

I’m seeing a spinal surgeon today

1 Comment

This evening I have an appointment to see a spinal surgeon at Salford Royal, an appointment I’ve been waiting for since August after having my x-rays done. I don’t talk about this much, but I’ve got double Scoliosis of the spine, which is a curvature of the spine. My spine forms a letter ‘S’ shape and was operated on back in 1990 (during the World Cup, I came out of hospital on the day Germany beat England in the semi-final).

I’ve been OK for many years, but recently my back has grown worse and my left leg goes dead and doubles up with cramp when I walk for more than a few minutes. I just checked my blog for past mentions of Scoliosis, and found this post in November 07, where I mentioned how I couldn’t walk for more than a few miles. It’s much worse than that now, which isn’t a good sign. It’s been bad since the summer and yesterday when I was shoe shopping in Chester I struggled to walk from one shop to the next without needing to sit down.

Anyhow, I’m seeing a spinal surgeon later today to see if anything can be done about it, as only being able to walk for a few minutes at the age of 32 is pretty shite.

I’ll be sure to let everyone know how I get on, and maybe get some images of my x-ray, which I have seen since and the rod in my back has slipped quite considerably.

Rants

Where can I buy sized 12 shoes?

5 Comments

Like most guys I’m not particularly keen on shopping. I’d much rather do it from the comfort of my home via the Internet rather than traipse round town centres and shopping centres. However there are some things you can’t really buy online and shoes are one of them, at least if you want them to fit properly.

When I go shoe shopping though I get very frustrated. Not because I don’t like trying shoes on, because I can’t find anything in my size. I’m only a size 12, which isn’t particularly big. I’m only 6’2”, which while tall isn’t exactly freakishly tall. There are many people taller than me in most rooms or shops, yet it seems that most shoe shops only carry a limited stock of size 12 shoes. Plus, the shoes they do have in a 12 are never the ones I want.

Why do shoe shops only cater for short, stunted guys? When I have to pick up a shoe I want and ask the poor girl at the till if she has it in a size 12 I feel slightly embarrassed. Why should I feel ashamed to have such gargantuan feet? I’m large; I can’t be the only one? There must be other guys out there who require size 12 shoes, yet the best designs are made just for midgets and inadequate guys who wear size 8.

As a nation we’re getting taller year on year, but no one seems to be adapting to that when it comes to making shoes. I don’t want to feel like a freak for asking for a 12 in a shoe shop, yet because I’m bigger than most men it seems to happen that way.

Anyway, I did manage to buy two pairs of sized 12 shoes in Chester yesterday. One was in Jones’ the Bootmakers and one was in Debenhams. They were OK, the pair of Kickers from Debenhams were quite good, but I saw better shoes elsewhere that only come in midget sizes. Next had a cool pair that seemed to only go up to an 8, and they couldn’t even order a 12 because they don’t carry them. There was a great pair of Adidas in another shop that seemed to peak at a 10.

Life is tough when you’re not a stunted midget.