I have special feet and these are my new special boots. And they’re awesome!
It took the shoemaker over 6 months to make them, but they’re perfect. Someone’s gonna be hiking everywhere soon 🙂
Yes, I know, they’re just shoes. But they’re something special to me. Today is a good day!
Actually it’s my local prosthetist at the hospital. They don’t just make prostheses: they make braces and custom footwear also.
And I don’t mind sharing how much I paid for them: zero 🙂 Where I live in Europe, healthcare is free, and these shoes were graciously granted to me by the public hospital as a prescription.
And because public money paid for them - i.e. the community - I’m very grateful and I intend to take very good care of them, to avoid having to change them for as long as possible. But if / when I need a new pair, all I have to do is call the hospital and they’ll make me another one for free until I die.
I did inquire about the price if I wanted to order a pair like this on my own money, and while they were reluctant to say, I deduce that they run north of 3000 euros. And they’re not turning a profit on them.
that’s wonderful! i wish you many years of happy hiking ^^
also waaaaa prosthetist sounds like an absurdly interesting job!! you may have just opened my eyes to a potential career path!
Thanks!
I would have liked to become a prosthetist. It’s at the intersection of machining, modelling, technical problem-solving, electronics, biology, medicine and social work. It’s more often than not at the cutting edge of technology and prosthetists get to help real people with real problems.
But my professional life took different turns, and now I’m close enough to the end of it that wouldn’t make any sense for me to switch career again. Particularly considering the degrees and the years needed to become a certified prosthetist.