Rolling Along

 Let’s start with this sweet picture. The quality of iPhone photos never fails to amaze me. This was taken last week. 

Now a cautionary tale . . . 

I hesitated to write about this, but I thought it could be a good cautionary tale. If you are a faithful reader of this blog, you know I have had some ongoing foot issues. Well, things were finally healed and I was back out galavanting without restrictions. It didn’t last long. :-(

Three weeks ago, on a really warm morning,  I was simply climbing my back stairs after a short walk with Emma when I felt a sharp pain in my calf. I thought it was a cramp and blamed it on perhaps not being hydrated enough. The “cramp” simply would not go away even with ice packs. Much later that evening, my lower leg was swollen, red, and warm to the touch. By the next morning, my leg looked fairly back to normal. That night it happened again, and so the next day, I headed to the urgent care associated with our local hospital. The doctor put me on an antibiotic as she diagnosed it as cellulitis. When I was still having the same issue five days later after I had finished that course of antibiotic, I went to the urgent care at Harbor Medical. This doctor sent me for a vascular ultrasound to rule out a blood clot. The test was thankfully negative, so she prescribed a different course of antibiotics. Seven days later, things were not any better, so back I went. The third doctor said he didn’t think it could be cellulitis as two courses of antibiotics would have taken care of it, so he urged me to see an orthopedist some day this week which I did. 

My orthopedist listened to what I had been dealing with for the past three weeks, and in, I kid you not, in less than a minute he diagnosed a ruptured Achilles tendon. Normally, this would mean surgery, but because I am diabetic, he did not want to operate. He said with my other foot issues, the chance of infection would be too serious.

So, I will be sporting this very fashionable boot twenty-four hours a day for months.  Yes, I have to sleep wearing it, and I am to use this sleek rollator since the wedges in the boot would throw off my balance. 

I had been so eager to get back to working in my gardens, but that’s out until next year. :-(  There a few good things. I’m a very fortunate two-time breast cancer survivor, and this isn’t cancer. It will take time, but it will heal. I am not grounded. The doctor said I could be out galavanting as long as I use the rollator and let someone else do the driving which I did yesterday when I went out to lunch with friends. It’s awkward and unwieldy but there is no discomfort, so I’ll just keep rolling right along.

So, why did I share this with you? Just as a warning. . . be careful and be persistent when seeking medical help. (I did have a wonderful, caring primary physician who sadly for her patients retired in June.) One other thing, my orthopedist asked if I had seen doctors when I visited the urgent care sites as he said this condition should have been simple to diagnose and I would have been by this time three weeks into the healing process. As I said, it took him less than a minute to diagnosis it correctly.

Heck, who wanted to take a vacation this summer anyway???