When you fall and break an ankle as bad as I did last February, you start making yourself walk with a little more attention being paid to how you plant your feet on different surfaces. At this point - I am doing OK. Some parts of the day (we are talking just minutes at a time) - I walk with a gait - so good - that you can't tell I am ailing (the pain is still there). I can go uphill pretty good, but downhills are the scariest, even simple inverted spaces on the lawn area.
I have made it a point to ask in a surveying kind of way, to everyone who I would trust with this question...
"What kind of shoe would be best for someone who has gone through what I have and is worried in the stability of her ankles?" It had to be low top, I have screws in the outside part of the ankle that higher topped shoes would bother - and I don't plan to have the hardware removed. Before I got an answer where I could try on and test a shoe, I purchased a pair of black AVIAS that are 'slip-resistant'.
They aren't very good-looking, but I have been wearing them to pull weeds - that is a whole 'nother story in and of itself.
My brother-in-law is a PT in Cali. I asked him. He said "Keens". While in Sante Fe, we shopped REI. I bought a pair - I trusted him. I have worn them almost constantly since. I even put them on when I get out of bed. They give me 'high confidence' that I won't be turning my ankle out of them on any surface. They are such solid shoes, very rugged..not the prettiest or daintiest, but I like the way they feel. Besides, I don't have dainty feet.
I used to wear Danskos, before I broke, dislocated and smashed my leg bones - I will never wear them again. I will probably not do a lot of things ever again - like run, climb mountains, ski - that kind of thing.
I have more surgery to face in a month or so (getting rid of the 'floating particles', bone fragments?, cartilage and scar tissue that has formed in the front of my ankle, where it bends - hence the pain, popping joints and inability to walk very good at times). This surgery will require another 4 - 6 weeks of 'downtime' for me..but for now, I have art to do and I am doing it today, all week and the next week and so on. That's what I am doing today.
