Flip flops are never a good thing for your feet when you are expecting to do a lot of walking. Your feet are probably the most forgotten asset on your body, and should be well taken care of for whole body health. Typically, we grab a pair of cute shoes, put them on and go off to the town. Unlike most women, I have never enjoyed wearing shoes as I would much rather be barefoot; which is why flip flops are my go to choice in everyday wear. I took a trip that opened my eyes on why a good pair of shoes is important.

When I was 15 years old I read A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr, which opened my eyes to the events in Woburn, MA that culminated in the little-known court case Anderson v. W.R. Grace. While other teenage girls were reading magazines and young-adult romance novels, I was reading case studies and dreaming of becoming a profiler for the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) of the FBI.

In 1972, Anne Anderson’s four-year-old son Jimmy was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a rare and incurable form of cancer, as were the children of eight other families all living within a half mile of each other. Anne eventually suspected that Woburn’s municipal water, which had had an unusual color and bad taste for years, might have had something to do with Jimmy’s diagnosis, a suspicion that was confirmed by the local paper in 1979 when they discovered that 184 barrels of toxic chemicals had been buried near two of the city’s drinking water wells. It took nearly 15 years since Jimmy’s diagnosis and the deaths of 16 children before Anne and the other affected parents received an $8 million settlement out of court from W.R. Grace, the company that owned the barrels.

Anne eventually suspected that Woburn’s municipal water, which had had an unusual color and bad taste for years, might have had something to do with Jimmy’s diagnosis

I had always been interested in environmental science, social sciences, and true crime, and I suspected there was a lot more to this story than what had come to light during the trial and in the newspapers. So I grabbed a friend and headed north to see the sights associated with the case.

sore feet woburn, maWe walked all over town sightseeing and speaking with locals (to include then-Mayor Scott D. Galvin) for two days. I had initially anticipated expanding my trip into the areas surrounding Woburn. But by the end of the second day my feet were hurting so bad that all I wanted to do was sit down.

I decided to turn to a spa for treatment and relief. It would set me back a little from my tight schedule but I figured if it would get me back on my feet it would be worth it. I found a spa that offered pedicures for two at a relatively reasonable price (relatively reasonable being $60 per person for both me and my friend, as we were both broke teenagers at the time.) We had saved up some money for the trip but didn’t have a whole lot for unexpected expenses like this. I booked an appointment for us both the following morning.

…by the end of the second day my feet were hurting so bad that all I wanted to do was sit down

At the start of the appointment, I requested the pedicurist use a salt scrub. Thanks to my mom’s love of bath salts, I had a working knowledge of their usefulness and the callouses on my feet were so fierce I couldn’t imagine anything else being able to help.

salt scrubThose of you who have never experienced a professional salt scrub might wince at the thought of rough grains of salt scraping against feet that were already hurting from walking, or if you happen to be ticklish you might feel the urge to start laughing uncontrollably, but honestly it wasn’t either. It was actually so relaxing I could have fallen asleep during the process.

Each $60 was supposed to cover four treatments: exfoliation, shaping, callous treatment, and a foot massage. The shaping focused on my toenails and was merely an added incentive. I was really looking forward to the callous treatment. This time I did experience some tickling sensations but mostly it felt good to have the excess dry skin removed. The pedicurist used the same salt scrub she had used for the exfoliation session, this time using it to soften my tough callouses. The scrub was made with added Shea Butter to soften tough, calloused skin so that wouldn’t need to be scraped away (which would have hurt.) It felt like heaven. It was almost like getting a massage and a cleaning all at once. Once this was complete, she pulled out a callous remover tool and began to brush across the bottom of my feet and scrub away what remained of my callouses.

My feet looked amazing at the completion of this. I could already feel a major difference in the way my feet looked and felt than when I had first walked in, and I was so relaxed at this point that, like I said, I was on the verge of falling asleep. But I still had one more treatment to go: the foot massage.

The massage therapist used lotions to help my feet retain the moisture they had absorbed from the Shea Butter salt scrub so they wouldn’t dry out the minute I put my socks back on. The lotion was not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill department store lotion either. It was glycerin-based and made with essential oils that filled the air with sweet aromas that made me feel even more relaxed and at ease than I already was. The natural glycerin was what allowed my feet to retain moisture so it wouldn’t just soak into my socks.

I walked out of that spa feeling like I had a new set of feet

I walked out of that spa feeling like I had a new set of feet and was able to continue on my voyage to visit other cities including Everett, Worcester, Framingham, Foxborough, Salem and Boston. It was easily more than double the amount of walking we had done in Woburn but thanks to our spa visit, our feet didn’t hurt. It was definitely worth $60 per person.

On my way home I realized that the reason my feet hurt so much after the first two days was probably because I wore flip flops throughout the trip, during late August with not a cloud in the sky. I have since learned to pack more practically.