Old Curling Injury

I've been complaining about pain in my left ankle for several months now. Sure, I've complained about other things. But the ankle is nearest and dearest to me.

Yesterday I went to my orthopedist for the results of my CAT scan from this past Wednesday. There is what amounts to a divot or pothole towards the top side of my talus bone. It has filled with heavy liquid, forming a cyst. When I irritate the cyst - pow - ankle pain. Bad ankle pain sometimes.

For the time being we're going to employ pain management strategies; the Doc says surgically removing the cyst and filling in the pothole/divot should only come when and if the injury begins to interfere with everyday life. It may require an ankle replacement (I didn't know that was a thing) but that's a long way off if needed at all. He did give me a light brace to wear between the ankle and my shoe when the pain is bad enough to warrant it.

So the news isn't terrible. I can make do with that treatment plan, at least for the foreseeable future. 

I asked him if the injury was always there but undiscovered until lately, or if I had done something to cause it. He explained that most such injuries occur due to a fairly constant, repetitive motion over a long period of time, "Yet I can't imagine what that could have been," he finished.

I could. I curl.

Without going into a lot of detail, as a right handed curler I put a lot of pressure on my left foot when delivering a curling stone, and I played for around 35 years. When telling the doctor that he replied, "That might well have caused it, yes, although we can't really know for sure."

Well, I'm running with it anyway. My bum ankle is the result of an old curling injury. Prove me wrong.

A Hole in the...Leg?

Well, the X-rays and MRI I had recently showed that I have ankle tendonitis. Take Aleve, stay off it as much as possible, ice the area, and so on and so on. That I get; that I can handle.

What intrigues me are what else was found via the medical procedures. It seems I have holes at the base of each leg bone, the tibia and the fibula, right where they come into the ankle joint.

After eliminating the dangerous possibilities which the condition may have suggested (and there is nothing dangerous, I am assured) the orthopedic specialist called them 'benign deformities' and nothing more. We would likely have never even known they were there without having had the X-rays and MRI.

So I have a hole in my leg. Beats a hole in the by a fair margin I suppose.

The Very Serious Doctor

My doctor is a good doctor. He is also a very serious doctor in fact. That's fine, of course, and laudable. Yet it sets him up where he can't seem to take jokes.

As a result of the MRI I had done this past Monday to analyze the ankle pain I've been having, he called to tell me that the results indicated acute tendonitis. That's not so bad. His instructions were to stay off my feet as much as possible for a couple weeks, and to take Aleve, as it is the best over the counter medication for my condition. He advised me, "Take it twice daily, with food."

"Oh, okay. You mean with potato chips or chocolate cake, then?" I was asked, clearly believing the joke was obvious.

"What? Oh, no, no, no," he responded after a reflective pause. "Take it with your breakfast, with something like oatmeal or cereal, then again with your dinner. Eat something substantial with each tablet." He was completely serious. I could see it over the phone.

I agreed to follow his advice. Maybe I should take it more seriously anyway.

Impressions on an MRI

Yesterday morning, as I related to one and all, I had an MRI of my foot done. Although I have had an MRI before, it was of my head. It showed nothing.

There: I beat every one of you to the punchline.

The main difference with a foot exam is that I wasn't put all the way into the machine. That actually felt more odd than when I was slipped into the unit head first back in 2016. I was surrounded by the thing then. With my foot, I was aimed in backwards, so to speak, so that the top half of me was outside. It gave me the vague feeling of being swallowed up. Then too, the ceiling above where I lay had a tranquil landscape for me to gaze upon. Unfortunately it caused me to feel like I was experiencing Edward G. Robinson's dying scene from Soylent Green. I have felt more mentally comfortable.

On top of that, the television in the men's change room (I had to put on a hospital gown for the procedure) had a readout in the upper corner which claimed that it was Saturday, August 18, at 8:17 AM. That too made me less than confident in the proceedings.

Physically, I felt as though I were swaying mildly all through the MRI. The tech said that might have been a side affect of the procedure, as the MRI was set at one and a half times the pull of the Earth's gravity. That, she said, can throw off the patient's equilibrium. 

Perhaps. But it made it that much harder to keep my damn foot immobile for the 40 minutes or so the exam took. 

Ah well. She told me, the tech, that is, that they got a good solid look at the ankle. So come on now, Doc, let me know what ails me.

Begin the Week, End the Month

A few weeks ago I related that I'm having ankle pain, sometimes severe enough that I can barely walk, above my left foot. At the time I went in to have X-Rays taken.

They were inconclusive. Just my luck. So by the time you're reading this I hope to have had an MRI finished. My appointment was at 6 AM this morning at Harper Hospital in Detroit. It was the first appointment of the day and honestly, I leapt at it. Maybe I'm fooling myself with some psychological game playing, but I feel like I'm gaining a day on the results, being so early on and first in line. I especially like that last part. We all know how delays pile onto one another as time goes on.

What a way to begin a week. Or end a month I suppose, as it is January 31st. I truly hope that the MRI will find an easily handled issue. Perhaps the answer will only be to keep my foot out of my mouth after all.

My Left Foot

Everything was going well. My doctor had the order for my foot X-rays ready when I arrived at his office. There was no one in front of me at the X-ray station at the hospital next door. Yesterday was proceeding rather smoothly indeed.

Then I had to get the actual X-rays.

I did not know that my foot could get into the positions the technician put it into. Neither did the rest of me. As I sat up on the table and he twisted my left foot outward, a complete chain reaction was caused along my entire body. I had to turn myself against my left hip, stretch my leg out, and hold my torso up with my hands behind my back (otherwise he would not have gotten the right angle). It was as if I were playing solo Twister while gamma rays were being fired into my body. 

"Hold perfectly still," the technician told me sternly.

I laugh. Ha, ha! Surely you jest.

That's when I got the Mr. Spock raised eyebrow. The X-ray tech did not, in fact, jest.

Fortunately that was the worst of the five X-rays taken, although the other four had their own special levels of discomfort. I appreciated getting that first one out of the way though. 

The damn thing is that through all the twisting and turning and hold still-ing, my ankle didn't hurt at all. Not one bit. I could hardly walk on Thursday (which prompted my call to the doctor who ordered the X-rays). Foot pain has been an issue for me off and on for at least a year, foot and ankle pain so bad I could barely hobble around at times. But as it's becoming more on than off, it was high time to do something about it, right? Yet I had no pain at all while enduring the procedures. I walked out of the hospital just fine after hobbling in. 

Of course, when I stepped out of my new old van on returning home, I nearly went down in a heap. So it goes.

My doctor will have the X-rays Tuesday, so hopefully I'll have reasonably good news then. I fully expect the diagnosis to be COVID though.

Sorry. I couldn't resist that.