Post Frostbite "Kit"

Ok, so it’s a week since my Sunday Frostbite fiasco. Winter walking will never be the same.

First of all, there seems to be some permanent damage – especially in the fourth toe on my left foot – the one that went gray. Dead as a doornail, that one. The rest are tingly at the tips, some are still a little tender, but not bad. Yesterday I was able to wear my normal shoes without pain, though, so that was great.

Last night I visited some “new” friends – well, I was actually his Gr. 12 prom date, and haven’t seen him since… I found him on Facebook, connected with his brilliant wife – who seems to be my twin separated from me at birth – and she’s into Essential Oils. Last night while we visited at their lovely country home, Sue offered to massage my feet with some Essential Oils (not many people have offered to massage my feet EVER, let alone after knowing me for fewer than 12 hours…). This morning my toes felt irritated more than usual, which gives me hope that this oil mix/massage might be waking up some of those dead nerves. We’ll see what happens over the next few days.

I saw the doctor on Friday and he made it clear that I must now be extremely cautious for the rest of my life as I am now 10x more likely to get frostbite again. As someone who has freezing feet even at the height of summer, I felt somewhat doomed by that statement, and knew I had to re-think winter walking.

SO…

Frostbite

I was so proud of myself for getting out for my 3 hour walk yesterday in spite of the -19°C/-2°F temperatures. I bundled up, set up my technology, and headed down what was actually a beautiful pathway with fresh snow that sparkled in the sun.

As usual, my toes got pretty cold when I started out, but I knew that once I hit training speed, they'd warm up and be fine. Or, so I thought. Yesterday was a "ladder" walk, a kind of Interval walk where you jump around into different heart rate zones, several of which are quite slow. At times my feet felt fine. Other times, my toes were quite cold, but not painfully so.

On the way home, however, I began to feel quite uncomfortable and about 1km from home, when I should have been in HR Zone 2 (HR in the mid-90's) I just kept it up in HR Zone 5 (HR in the mid 130's) because my right foot felt numb, and both feet were feeling uncomfortable.

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