Bunion

Old man issues!  I gots me a bunion.  Right foot.  To be honest, I can't be certain it wasn't always there.  It's just that it happened to hurt after jogging.  I'd guess it's been there a LONG time, I just didn't recognize it.  Particularly as it's not small and if you hold the feet up side by side, the bunion is on one foot and pretty pronounced.

Not a shoe issue.  Could be a weight issue given my feet used to hurt quite a bit and I've only lost weight slowly over the year.  Well...could be the high heels (insanity.  Even if I was woman I don't see the point. My calves already look nice).  In the end, it seems to boil down to "go see a doctor/podiatrist".  Going to have to add it to my post-covid list of checkups.

IT Band

Sounds like I'm forming a band for developers.  Larry, did your wife get one of these for her IT band issue?  The first time (hopefully the only time, your comment made me very nervous) I had an issue, they recommended a roller.  The appropriate process is to sort of lay on it with the affected "leg" and then roll back and forth.  You know you're doing it right when actual tears start to flow.  Not out of your leg.  The normal way, tears of pain from your eyes.  And I don't say that meaning "until it feels like you'll cry", I will admit to actual shedding of tears.  Hurts like hell.  Not kidney pain style, but definitely unpleasant.

I tried these exercises too.  Seemed to be making a difference, although the exercises less so than the roller.

Knee

I biked about 250 miles last month on the trainer.  It was all good until that last ride, and now my left knee hurts.  It seems to hurt in exactly the same spot it hurt prior to the accident after I did an energetic ride, so I can only assume it's not related to my broken hip at all, but a regular old case of strain.  It's not too bad at all, although I took six days off bicycling, and when I go back to it tomorrow, I'll be ratcheting down the speed from 20 mph to something more like 16.  Nice and easy with a bit of Advil and ice.

Just so I have a documentation to compare against next time, left leg, outside of the knee the nobby bit is somewhat tender, and then the knee itself sort of locks a little with an ache, particularly after using the stairs, but not always.  If I sit crosslegged with my right leg resting on the left, the pressure just above the knee translates into a bit of an ache on the top, side and bottom (not under the kneecap proper).  It's not a minor bit of pain when it kicks in, it's more of a quick ramp up that's rather surprisingly in intensity.  The closest comparison I have is a kidney stone without that level of pain.

Interestingly, I had an IT band issue before the accident (that the accident eliminated) and one of the symptoms of a recurring IT band issue seems to be pain that translates to the knee.  I hope it's not coming back.  I remember last time this happened, it was just before spring, and transitioning off the trainer to outside, where the bicycling is a little more varied in pace and on/off the bike happens more frequently, seemed to resolve the problem.  No chance of that for another month, so I'll have to work at keeping it healthy until then.

X-rated Friends (TMI Warning)

I'm rather embarrassed I ever watched episodes of Friends.  It's just not that good.  But if you did, do you remember the episode where Ross had something strange on his ass?  So this was my experience today at the Colon and Rectal doctor, who I last visited in 2008 (so if you're a regular reader, this isn't exactly TMI compared to previous posts)...

Doc: Why are you here?

Me: Hemorrhoids again.

Doc: That's unlikely.

Me: Really?  Even after if an accident screwed things up. Or too I got too many laxatives in the hospital?

Doc: Let's have a look...

Doc: You don't have hemorrhoids.  Who told you you have hemorrhoids?

Me:  Felt like last time. I thought it must be hemorrhoids.

Doc: It wasn't your family doctor?  You self-diagnosed?

Me: Well. yes.  It felt like last time, my doc said I could cut him out as the middle man.

Doc: You don't have hemorrhoids.  

...

Doc: Wait...what's this??

On a positive note, he said shortly afterward, that as far as this particular ass problem goes, if he had to have it, he'd prefer to have my instance as I can go in on a Saturday for two hours and be back at work on a Monday morning, uncomfortable, but functional.  So now I have to go get an ultrasound, followed by a two hour  "procedure".  Procedure clearly doesn't deserve quotes, but as it requires being put under and a knife and/or laser, it's obviously the politically correct way of saying surgery.

Now I'm going to go ride my bike.  I'll regale you with more tale and less mystery later.  I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise for my wife, who's enjoying Iceland.  Guess Scooter's Butt Issue is probably a gambling pool all of Reykjavik can wager on.

Coals to Newcastle...or something like that

It's bad enough not being able to get around other than at a slow shuffle because of a busted leg and arm.  What's worse is getting extremely ill so that getting to the bathroom quickly is a necessity.  Maybe I'll use it as my example when people ask me to define irony in the future.  On a positive note, while I'm on short term disability, I don't have to take a sick day.

Longest Gap Ever

Then again, getting your convertible t-boned in St. Paul, and then being in a coma for many days, only getting out of the hospital after two weeks, and even then with pneumonia of the lungs...well, you can see blogging wasn't a priority. I have some amusing posts to add related to my health.

Creepy

This morning I looked at my toes and noticed the nail on my middle toe had a bump.  So I poked it and most of the nail fell off.  Gross.  But there was another toenail beneath it.  It seems like a new nail had been forcing the old one up and out of the way. I'm not sure what would cause that to happen. LissyJo, CookieQueen, is that what MyChart is for? Or should I just stop the teleportation experiments?

Smaller

Down 32 pounds since January 15.  Bit of a steep decline, and I'm worried the speed contributed to the kidney stones, but I feel fine, so I suspect I'm not messing up my diet. Bit of bicycling.  Bit of just eating right.  Notice I didn't say "diet".  At the moment, I'm eating sunflower seeds and drinking an Inversion IPA from Deschutes Brewery, so you can't accuse me of starving myself.  If anything, I'm eating better, with more fish, more vegetables, and a consistent variety of fruits.  I think it bodes well for the start of the bicycling season (which I consider to be the Minnesota Iron Man, although I'm usually on the roads for a few weeks before that event) seeing as it's still over a month away.

Kidney Stone, Remix (last one was 2 years ago)

I had some back pain recently, and thought it was related to shoveling and bicycling.  It occurred to me for a moment that it felt sort of like when I had a kidney stone two years ago, but I wrote it off because of the exercise.  Then yesterday, after the amazing amount of snow that dropped on us - I shoveled three times and that didn't take care of all of it by any means, let alone the two feet of snowplow churn that was all over the bottom half of the drive this morning - perhaps 20" if you base it on our bird bath, I developed a sort of spasming backache that I was certain was shoveling induced.  Until about hour number three of the pain which was both across my back and in my abdomen.  We called my mother, the Nurse Practitioner, and she said to go to the ER as I wasn't sure what it was (could be kidney stone, could be ruptured bowel - who knows until you get it checked out).  That was easier said than done as the plow hadn't come by yet.  We bundled into the car, backed down to the end of the driveway, and promptly went no where.  The neighbors came out to help push the car back into the driveway while my wife called the ambulance.

But the ambulance couldn't get to our house either, so a cop showed up in a big SUV to find me laying on the floor (didn't really stop the pain, but at least I'm not teetering all over).  He asked some questions, loaded me into his truck, and hauled me to the end of the neighborhood road where the ambulance was just getting unstuck.  From there it was into the back of the ambulance and hooked up to saline and drugs, waiting for the plow to come blaze the way like some icebreaker.

A very bumpy half hour or so later, we were at the ER.  They put me in a room, asked me some questions, and I took a nap while they got around to me for a bit of blood (she missed - I hate that - I really hate it when it's one of those teflon suction needles.  They hurt.) and scheduling me to go get a CT.  Later the doc came in to tell me the CT had found a 4mm stone and that it was in the tightest spot and on its way out.  That said, they checked me out and sent me home.

Easier said than done.  It was 12:30 a.m., my wife still couldn't get out of the driveway, and taxis were running 2-3 hours behind schedule.  I picked up some percocet at the pharmacy (vaguely works with me, at least it cuts the pain if it's not a full on attack), and noticed this sign.  This is funny if you've had surgery in that area.  At least I thought it was funny.  Rectal cancer itself is in no way funny.

Percocet in hand, and a bag of vending machine fruit snacks in my stomach to make up for all the vomiting I'd done earlier in the evening when the pain got too bad, I went back out to the ER and sat in a wheelchair facing the sliding doors and waiting for the cab while reading a Discover magazine.  Around 2:30, my cab hadn't shown up yet, but another cab company was dropping someone off and had availability.  It was an interesting ride back.  In certain places, they'd plowed one lane out of six, leaving a road between two tall mounds of snow.

When we got close to home, I took a look at the roads going back into my neighborhood and told the cabbie to drop me off on the corner about four-five blocks from my house.  I gave him a good tip, and then started walking home.  I'm glad it was relatively warm out and that it was a beautiful evening, but trying to get five blocks with back pain and abdomen pain is a bit of a hassle.

By the end of today, despite the doctor's assurance there was a single stone, I've passed 3.5 stones (one was very small), maybe 3.75 if I count the sliver, and there's obviously more left given the cycling of pain I feel.  And there's more snow.  But at least I'm pretty sure the back pain isn't from shoveling.

Change in Habits - Update

So it's been about a month since I stated I was changing my habits.  Results so far?  Down 18.5 pounds.  I suspect I'm actually down 20, but I forgot to weigh myself the first few days after starting.  I know 18.5 pounds in a month isn't exactly healthy, but the truth is that's the easy weight - what I usually fluctuate by in the summers doing casual bicycling.  So I'm not too worried about it.  According to my iPad app, I took in 56,410 calories in the last 34 days.  I exercised, burned 110,293 calories.  That's a net of -53,883 calories, or 15.4 pounds.  So the counter is running reasonably close to reality.  So what have I changed?

• Bike 2-3x a week, generally for an hour each time.
• Lots of fish.
• Lots of vegetables (cauliflower/green beans)
• Take my lunch to work 95% of the time to control what I'm eating.
• Healthy snacks (generally almonds or a dried fruit/nut mixture and oranges and apples).
• Always breakfast.
• Track it via the iPad.

You'll note that I didn't include "gave up alcohol" or "gave up sweets".  I'm careful about how much of those things I'm imbibing, but I haven't given them up.  This did lead to at least one embarrassing day where I think my alcohol-related calories were higher than my other calories for the day.  That's possible with beer.  Less likely if I drink whiskey (and I'm careful with Scotch as it tends to have an impact on my mood which is more obvious if I'm not eating as much).

On an amusing note, I've found that I can't really eat a full restaurant meal anymore, so I tend to haul home half of my food.  That's resulted in twice as much mileage from my eating out, and leftovers for lunch or dinner for myself or my wife.  Who, I should mention, is benefiting from my healthier lifestyle.  If your husband is cooking wasabi salmon, bison stew, or pecan-crusted tilapia, green beans, and baked curry cauliflower, you're naturally going to eat better.  If for no other reason than you don't have to cook dinner.

Better Health Through RAGBRAI

I had my annual checkup and my every other year blood workup this week. My cholesterol is down 50 points in the last four years. The first reading in 2006 was just before I started training for my first RAGBRAI. Despite not losing much weight, my blood health is headed in a good direction. I suspect I can attribute that to all the bicycling. Nice to see something is moving in the right direction after breaking 40. As an age-related bonus, my doc did point out that my chances of getting testicular cancer almost disappear after 40, so I should hit the grave with my balls intact.

I Scratched...

I scratched my head so much that it feels bruised.

ITCHY!

I spent a portion of the weekend working on rental property. Saturday was efficient, because I assessed the overloaded closet (in their defense, overloaded by the previous tenant), went to Home Depot, bought two cobalt drill bits (in case one breaks), four lag screws, slightly larger than the stripped screw that had come loose, and a spare L-rod in case it all went pear-shaped. 30 minutes later, I had the old screw hole redrilled, a second hole drilled, and the shelf up and solid. My only concern was the slight crunching noise the wood behind the wall made as things went up. I suspect if I were to rip down the wall I wouldn't be happy with the state of the pine.

Sunday was more difficult. We have a house of 10 that had a garage door opener without functioning safety sensors. When we fixed the opener and ran the wire before, it didn't work at all. Taking a multi to the wires revealed they were broken/clipped at several places. So I bought 100' of heavier wire and went to work, climbing over all the boxes the new renters (combining two familes, so just imagine) had in the garage. I even managed to hurt my back a little moving book boxes. I ran the wire, confident I had enough because I'd estimated: over my head = 8', at least twice that far back into the garage, 24', and about 1.5x that to center, 36' of wire per side. So imagine my surprise when I got to the end of the second wire a good 8' before the sensor holder. I checked the packaging and realized some nice customer had dumped a roll of 50' in the 100' bin. So it was back to Home Depot. Ugh. But it works, and all is safe.

Except me. I came home, only slightly beat up from straining my back with the box off books (it was actually several boxes of books, and many more boxes off other stuff, and while I was in a maze of boxes clearing a way to the wall, one of the renters dropped a number of 40# bags of salt under the garage door line, so I had to move those as well), with a generous amount of crusty blood all over my thumb from poking it with a razor blade, worries about how all the renters had been suffering from H1N1 only a week earlier, and an itchy head. The back ache got better with advil. The thumb washed clean and only feels a little numb in one spot. I don't seem to have H1N1 despite being sick. But the itchy head wouldn't stop! I scratched and scratched, and then dumped lotion all over my head. It itched through the lotion, but I fell asleep. Then today, it still itched. And got worse, and worse (and I was sick on top of it). By the time I took Pooteewheet to see the doctor, I was scratching non-stop. Grating, finger-nail etching, trying to pull up skin from my head, scratching. Then the hives started. And the itchy ears. And the back ache (not the back ache from lifting the books, but an allergy-style back ache like I get from rum and too many tomatoes). Finally, aboout 4:30 it faded a bit, and I'm still scratching at 8:05, but it's better.

I don't know what fell on me while I was running sensor wires, but I don't think I'm going to climb around that garage again any time soon.

Because I Care

On the way home from the ER on Friday, I got to thinking about how kidney stones are really painful, and that it might be a valuable path for one's life if one were to come up with either a cure, or a way to ease the suffering, perhaps by some medical drink or by shortening the duration, of individuals with kidney stones. These sorts of issues weigh heavily on me when I think about how I'd like to make sure anyone else I meet is best prepared to combat their stones. With all manner of altruism foremost in my mind, the embodiment of a modern day Albert Schweitzer, I asked Pooteewheet, "Do you think sucking would help?"

You can blame my lack of experimental knowledge, inability to make a lasting impact on the medical community, and inability to brighten the lives of millions of victims of their own evil kidneys on her unwillingness to try until there was some measure of success. All she could do was look at me and remark, "Didn't you just leave the ER?"

In response to which I can only quote Mignon McLaughlin, who said in The Second Neurotic's Notebook (1966), "Grasp your opportunities, no matter how poor your health; nothing is worse for your health than boredom."

Renal Calculi

Friday afternoon, during my 2:00-3:30 meeting, I started to develop a back ache. I'd been sitting in meetings all day, so it wasn't anything of a surprise, but when I moved around and tried to reposition myself and couldn't find anything comfortable I was a bit confused by how bad it ached. I made it through the meeting, despite an incessant amount of squirming about, and was thankful that it was time to head home. Maybe I was having some sort of blockage from the surgery a month ago? Maybe I just needed to take a heating pad to my back or a hot bath. The pain got worse as I drove home. However, once I was in a warm tub it started to feel a little better and a little better and a little better. Things were good. Back ache taken care of without so much as an ibuprofen.

After dinner, it started to act up again, so I called my sister, the nurse practitioner, to ask what it might be, particularly as it was extending around the back to my abdomen and was localized to the right side of my body. While I was on the phone asking about whether it was urgent care or ER, the pain ramped up so much it was getting unbearable. And it wasn't leveling off. Pooteewheet and Eryn bundled me into the car and we were off to the ER in Burnsville again. How often have we been there? Often enough that when they had me on the gurney (we'll get to that) I recognized the back tattoo of a woman bending over her child. When she stood up, I was sure we'd bumped into her at the ER in the last year.

By the time we got to the hospital, it was letting up, although I was dry mouthed and shaking. The took my blood pressure and temperature and released me back into the waiting room where I was a cheerful soul for 40 minutes, when the pain ramped up again and I laid down on the floor. Which was sort of pointless. Pooteewheet watched me squirm for a while and then went to find someone, someone who promptly put me on a rolling stretcher/bed and left me where I could see the lower-back tattoo lady while I tried not to groan and squirmed like a worm. None of these incidents involved the same level of pain. Each time was just a bit worse.

After a while they rolled me in the back and my pain slowly let up again while they did a CT and an EKG (the doc likes EKGs, I didn't really need one) and finally came back with the pronouncement "one kidney stone, approximately 2 mm" (and a "couple" more in the kidney, not currently a problem). As I was fine, they gave me my second prescription for percoset in a month, a strainer to pee into to catch the stone, a jar to put the stone in, some other drugs to relax the muscles, and sent me home to pass the stone as it was under 5 mm. But not before Doctor Palomino drew me this very nice picture of the problem.

That thing in the upper right is my kidney, where the stone starts. Then it goes through that tube, which is where it was at the time, causing the spasming. Then it ends up in the bladder, and goes through the urethra on the bottom. At which point she noted, drawing that rather strange sideways oval and pointing at it, "that's your penis". Apparently I have a putter for a whang.



Everything was fine until Saturday morning when the backache started up again so bad I was throwing up (I did manage to make it to the bathroom). That was the magic bullet, however, and the stone passed a few hours later. All I'm left with now is the stone in it's jar for the clinic, a nasty lower back ache (I still biked 12.5 miles tonight), some stories to tell Ming, Brad (suffering from his own back pain), Kyle and Logan over breakfast at the Capital View Cafe' this morning, that nice picture, the threat of more stones, and a nice story by my mother about a 7 month pregnant woman who got staghorn calculus (wiki, kidney stones) so bad it ruptured her kidney.

If you're counting how many health problems I've had since turning 40, or since switching jobs, please stop. I'd like to. What cheers me up is that most of them seem somewhat self contained. One cured with a decrease in alcohol and caffeine. One fixed with surgery. One self-resolved (with the potential for more, but resolved for now). Unfortunately, I don't know how I'm going to fix my club-foot penis.

Surgery and Infection

So I've been out of action almost an entire week. I shall summarize it, in all it's gory, too-much-information, detail below. The evening after the pizza challenge I encountered a hemorrhoid problem. Not a get one and it goes away problem, but a 15 minutes of sleep overnight, I've run into something serious, sort of condition. I could blame poor eating habits, but it's probably more accurate to blame, in order, 1.) my father, who had surgery when he was 36 or so for hemorrhoids, 2.) bicycling (you can assume the pizza had quite a bit to do with it, but I doubt it - I suspect the 30 miles in the bike saddle that day was more of a culprit), 3.) my job environment (sitting in a cube or a chair all day. Given who I work for, can I call them hemorreuters?). So Monday morning I called my clinic and got a referral, then called the Fairview system to find someone who could get me in right away. I went in at 1:00 p.m., bent over for a doctor, and he said, "I'll see you in surgery tomorrow. Go get a pre-operative physical." F***. I walked through all the hoops, and the next day at 1:00 p.m. Fairview Southdale attempted six times to get a needle in me to knock me out. The anethetist was getting so frustrated that he demanded the Christmas music in the OR get turned off until he left.

Three hours later I was awake, and Pooteewheet told me the doctor said it had taken twice as long as he had thought it would as there was a crop of hemorrhoids. There's a word you really don't want to hear in conjunction with anything other than agricultural products and scrapbooking.

I went home on percoset and ibuprofen and did fine overnight on the couch (so Pooteewheet wouldn't accidentially kick me). But the next day I fell asleep at around 1:00 and woke up at 4:00 with a temperature of 102.7 (F). So it was off to the ER at Ridges. They moved me to the top of the line (a fever after ass surgery is serious business) stuck several more needles in me, took blood cultures, and several hours later announced I wasn't going anywhere other than to room 200 in the hospital for an overnight stay. Which turned into two overnights. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday until 7:00 p.m. I sat around trying to find some way to keep busy. The next morning the temp had cycled down to 101.3 or so. The morning after that to 99.6. They pumped several ivs of liquids and antibiotics into me, and then finally sent me home with two additional oral antibiotics to make sure everything was gone.

Some highlights:

• They still don't know what it is I caught. Feces in the blood stream? General infection picked up during the surgery? Coincidental cold?
• Having the doc examine your bum while it has stitches in it is BAD.
• Going to the bathroom while your bum has stitches in it is BAD.
• Morphine is worthless (as far as I'm concerned) for general ass pain. Percoset is much better.
• Having access to Facebook can relieve 15-30 minutes of boredeom, but not much more.
• Why doesn't the guy on survivorman ever find anything to eat? He mostly seems to survive by starving for 6 days until he's picked up.
• The oral antibiotics preclude drinking alcohol, so I spilled them all out on the counter to make sure I was going to be able to have a few beers on New Year's.
• I've been told I can get back on my bike two weeks after the surgery. I'm not sure I believe that - I'm guessing three. Pooteewheet thinks I'm crazy.
  

Now I'm home. And not feeling 100%, but I did make it to the office Christmas party yesterday for an hour just to see something that wasn't the inside of a small room. Kyle came over to visit and brought a game to play (I can sit on our new puffy couch - it was almost like my butt could see the future when we decided to buy it) and some food to eat, which was exceptionally nice of him.

The other doc told me I can expect to start feeling better somewhere 7-10 days out, somewhere between this Tuesday and Friday, and I'm supposed to do two follow up appointments this week to make sure my blood looks good. I'm going back to work tomorrow and have a full load of meetings - e.g. a full load of sitting in uncomfortable office chairs - so we'll see how that works out. I told Ming I'll probably be 10 minutes late shuffling my way from meeting to meeting.