Marla

I’m not even sure where to start with this. I guess I could start just by simply stating that I hate Marla. Passionately.

You might be wondering who the F this Marla person is. Well she’s not a person; she’s a part of my foot.

I’m not even sure how she was discovered. I think J was rubbing my feet and found a knot in the arch. It was a big knot, and after several massages over several weeks, it wouldn’t go away. I gave J the green light to abuse this knot – just beat the crap out of it until it’s gone. Only it never went away. Almost a year went by and it was still there. It got to the point that I jokingly (or at least mostly jokingly) started referring to it as a tumor.

Then one day I was re-watching Fight Club. Edward Norton’s character starts going to all these support groups so he can sleep. Only after a while this lady, Marla, starts showing up at them too. He stops being able to sleep, and gets pissed. They fight. He then narrates, “If I did have a tumor, I would name it Marla”. It was perfect, so I named my “tumor” Marla.

About a year later, I was being seen by a podiatrist to remove a (giant) wart from the bottom of my foot. I decided that since I was there anyway I might as well have him check out this knot and tell me how to remove it. He poked around at it for a minute, then told me it wasn’t a knot. It was plantar fibromatosis. Of course I went home and immediately started searching the internet for info on this condition. Apparently it’s rare, and doctors aren’t entirely sure what causes it, but think that it’s likely due to injury (maybe the size of the wart or something?). These little cysts start growing on your plantar fascia (the ligament that supports your arch. It runs length-wise in the bottom of your foot.) They actually ARE tumors, but they’re benign. Unfortunately there’s really not many treatment options.

Marla wasn’t bothering me too much at that time. It was mostly just a nuisance. Then I started getting these incredibly overwhelming cramps in my toes. Imagine toes curling over each other so they’re all deformed and whatnot, and then not being able to do anything to relax them. Excruciating doesn’t even begin to describe it. However, I didn’t seek medical help at this time. My mom gets these cramps, and since she just dealt with it, I figured that was the only remedy. Plus they weren’t happening all that often, maybe just 1 every month or 2. I did start eating more bananas and drinking more water though, since Dr. Google says cramps are typically caused by a lack of potassium or dehydration. Irritating and inconvenient as this had become, it wasn’t enough to send me to the doctor. After all, specialists costs money, and it wasn’t worth the cost-benefit.

Fast forward a few years to the present. Yes, Marla has been around for several years. After gradually increasing over time, I’m now getting these monster cramps like 2-3 times per day. That’s right, per day. Marla is usually killing me by the time I get home, and that’s assuming I don’t do any extra walking or working out. On those days, Marla starts hurting even earlier. My wonderful bf has been invaluable though, providing foot rubs and moral support as often as I need. Even if he just puts counterpressure on Marla, it feels so much better. However, this is NO way to live, so I finally got a referral to a podiatrist.

Today was the big day: finding out once and for all what I can do to fix this god-forsaken foot of mine.

First and foremost, I do NOT have plantar fibromatosis. Apparently the cysts in that disorder actually protrude from the bottom of the foot, so that they genuinely resemble the tumors that they are. Turns out I just have an extreme tightening of the plantar fascia, achilles tendon, and peroneus longus tendon (it goes from the arch of your foot to the middle of your calf). So my treatment is going to be physical therapy, ultra sound (somehow this makes it better? I’ll have to see how this works then give an update!), and a custom orthotic. This orthotic is likely not covered by my insurance, and I’m going to have to pay $300ish if that’s the case. NOT cool, but given the pain caused by Marla, I’m sure that I can scrounge up some change to cover that!

So anyway, that’s Marla. And that’s the story of why I hate her.