The official verdict: my ankles are shot.

I drove out to the burbs this morning to meet a physical therapist who specializes in gait, or the feet and legs in motion. I filled out lots of paperwork, then got down to work with Cheryl.

She put me through a series of exercises: standing on one foot, bending my knee, rising up on my toes, walking barefoot, walking with sneakers. I can't stand on one foot for any appreciable length of time, which is apparently not normal. (Can you?)

Then she put me on a table and manipulated my ankles one at a time, rolling and pushing, listening for clicks. My right ankle clicks from somewhere deep inside the joint; my left ankle clicks very close to the surface. The click in the left ankle is a tendon snapping over bone. The click in the right ankle is probably from a couple of bones not fitting together correctly after repeated injuries. "You really did a number on these," Cheryl observed. "What did you do, wrap them up each time and keep going?" I nodded. "Looks like."

As I walk, the weight-bearing ankle rolls outward. As I shift off that foot to the other, the ankle rolls inward. And, sadly, my New Balance sneakers make the instability worse. I have to get new sneakers.

But first, I have to get orthotics. Orthotics are custom-made insoles which provide stability to the feet and counter the rolling action of the ankles. I might need ankle braces anyway, but the orthotics are the first step, so I lay on my stomach for twenty minutes while Cheryl made plaster casts of my feet. She soaked thin cloth strips in plaster and warm water, then wrapped them around my feet, smoothing out any bumps or wrinkles. It was a deeply weird feeling, but not as weird as the feeling of taking them off once they'd hardened.

I'll go back in a few weeks and see how the orthotics feel. We'll go from there. In the meanwhile, I'm not to put too much strain on my ankles. I can go on wearing my Docs (yeah!), because the wide sole provides some stability for my wobbly ankles and makes me less likely to roll them.

So, yeah. My ankles? Toast.

I'm inexplicably chilled and tired today. Advil knocked the fever back, but I still feel sort of lousy. And I have work to do and a class tonight. Whine. But it was an interesting morning.