Today has not gone well.
I had two things to accomplish : get the pee test done, and cash my check.
I decided to cash the check first. Bad call, as it turned out.
I knew this was going to happen : the moment I got into line at the bank, the clock started ticking on how long I could remain standing.
I have never been any good at standing for a long period of time – no fat person is. When we stand, blood pools in our feet, and our feet swell up and become painfully sore and it only gets worse from there.
This tendency has only gotten worse since I have been getting sicker. My “standing time” ticker ticks faster every day.
So it didn’t take long for my legs to start hurting when I joined the line in the bank. There were only two people ahead of me, though. So maybe I could win the race yet.
Nope. Those two people were apparently doing a year’s worth of transactions one by one, because they were taking forever. Meanwhile the pain in my legs is building at wildfire speeds and I feel like I may faint.
Eventually, I have to quit. I had to either sit down or fall down. These people won. I had to go back out to the car to sit down with Julian, mission thwarted.
But I could still get that pesky pee test done, right?
Not with my legs hurting like that. I was honestly not sure I would make it the quarter of a block from the parking lot of the mini-mall to the lab without falling.
Being sick sucks.
So I didn’t achieve either of my goals, dammit. We will try again tomorrow.
Clearly the time has come for me to get some kind of walking assistance. A cane. Crutches. A wheelchair. A walker.
Doc Costin suggested a walker this morning. I told him my vanity prevented me from even contemplating that option.
He thought that was silly. But he’s in his mid-70s. He’s had a lot more experience with being old than I have.
We tried a cane. Joe got me one for my birthday. Small problem : My arms are not strong enough to support me that way. When I tried to use my cane to rise, my arm spazzed out, twitching back and forth like an itchy weathervane.
So that’s no solution, I talked about all the problems with being in a wheelchair yesterday. I would rather be bedbound then use a walker in public.
So that leaves crutches.
I fucking hate crutches.
They are super painful to use if you are my size. I was not built to support my entire weight on my armpits. Nobody was.
So yay, no “good” solutions, at least until I am rich enough to hire some big muscular dude in amazing good shape to carry me around.
A fella can dream, right?
A big beefy dude, with broad shoulders and strong hands and kind eyes…..
More after the break.
Until I took an arrow to the knee
So the latest “thing” tormenting me is this “thing” under my kneecap.
I got it when I took my last and latest fall,. Went down hard onto my knees in a move that would be amusingly overdramatic – like I should have been shouting “NOOOOOO!!!” at the same time – if it hadn’t been so painful.
And I knew right then that there would be a price to pay for that fall. I can’t expect to have all 300 lbs of me land on my poor fragile knees with there being consequences.
`I am not sure what to call this pain of mine. A sprain? A twist? A subpatellar contusion?
I’m going with that because it sounds cool.
The pain’s been gettng worse over the weeks been growing slowly over the weeks since I took my tumble. That suggests that things keep getting worse unless I get this taken care of ASAP.
Doesn’t seem like an ER-worthy thing though. And I don’t want to wait till next Monday for an appointment with my GP, Doctor Chao.
Guess I will give Urgent Care a try.
I’ve not tried it before because I don’t know how to tell whether my problem is an emergency or merely urgent, and that’s not the kind of value judgment I want to have to make when I am hurting anyhow.
But I think I get it now. I need to forget the whole urgent/emergent nonsense and just think of it being like my home town’s Medical Building.
In other words, a place with a whole bunch of doctors offices, both specialists and GPs, that you go when you are sick but not like, emergency room sick.
Ours was in a mall.
So I will get Julian to take me there tomorrow. Hopefully they can be more useful than the ER that never finds anything and the GP who can’t see me in person half the time.
Great, Doc, let me just email you my knee.
If it gets the results I want without my having to do time in Medical Purgatory, then I am all for it. And maybe, just maybe. they will take the time to find out what the problem actually is and maybe even (gasp!) treat it!
Even AFTER they are bored of it and go looking for something easier to fix so they can get their dopamine fix.
But maybe I’m just another pie-eyed idealist.
What worries me the most is its sub-patellar location. How are they even going to get good images of the issue, let alone get at it to fix it?
Honestly, they might have to remove it.
I hope I am wrong. I am hoping they can do it all laparoscopically, or something like it.
Either way, though, I have to get right on this before it gets worse.
There was times today when the so bad I couldn’t even use the computer. No matter how I sat, some part of me was tugging on the kneecap, and tugging = owies.
So tomorrow, I go to the new Urgent Care center.
Now where the hell is it?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.