I had been really optimistic after the last visit to the doc's and thought that the second blood test would only confirm what I wanted to hear, namely that all was settling down and healing nicely. I rang the practice on New Year's Eve when the result was due. "You'll have to come in," I was told, "that inflammation marker has tripled." I was given an appointment for 2 hours later and learnt that I would now get a referral to the masters of bone and joint ailments with their magic x-ray machine and scary joint punction needles over at the local hospital -- appointment time unknown, hopefully within the next two weeks. To ensure my legs weren't going to be eaten alive by some nasty bacterium over the New Year break, the GP threw in a course of antibiotics for good measure.
The antibiotics were of the proper World War II variety, as big as a marble. I couldn't get them down. In the end I cheated my gag reflex by swallowing spoonful upon spoonful of yoghurt but it took about half an hour for me to force all those pills down. The antibiotic plus the crap news knocked me out so much that I went to bed well before midnight and slept. Probably the first New Year's Eve since I was a child that I did not manage to stay up until 12 o'clock.
Moping around on New Year's Day, upset, worried and feeling sorry for myself. Thankfully two friends came round for dinner and cheered me up with presents and some outrageous gossip. Back to work on Wednesday, a welcome distraction, and while at the end of the day, my ankles had grown their usual set of ostrich eggs flanking the achilles heel, some ice and elevation sorted most of that out by bedtime.
Unfortunately, by Day 2, the WWII antibiotic had properly liquefied my insides, and I called up the GP and begged for a change in antibiotic and while we were at it, a switch from that monstrous tablet to the liquid kiddie version, please. No prob, she said, and off I went again, clutching yet another prescription. £7.65 well spent.
Thursday I started feeling the first twinges in my knees. Okay, I thought, they got a lot of punishment over the last 3 weeks that I had essentially been walking on tip-toes up and down our stairs because my achilles heels had been baked solid. By Friday evening, both knees were really painful despite the Naproxen. And my ankles were still inflamed.
I have now resigned myself to the possibility that I may have developed one of the 450 different types of arthritis there are out there and because I was sick to the back teeth of spending yet another weekend with my feet propped up on the sofa looking like Kafka's beetle, I got up first on Saturday morning, climbed creakily downstairs and made breakfast. After breakfast, I took a deep breath and finally opened the two packets of ankle tubing that I'd bought from Boots on New Year's Eve. I didn't want to even look at them because they reminded me of the dark days of my youth, of sports injuries and hours whiled away in the bone specialists' waiting room to be told I needed orthotics. Ankle tubing at my age looks like old age. I'm not ready for this yet. OH, whose beard makes him look about 20 years older than he really is, took pity on me and made helpful suggestions about how to make these horrible beige things look more attractive. "Sequins", he said, "glitter and lace". I could build this into a burlesque routine -- a sexy orthopedic-tubing removal to the 1962 tunes of 'The Stripper' by Joe Loss and His Orchestra.
Suitably strapped up, with black leggings over the support stockings, I waddled off with OH into town to do some shopping. We were walking for about an hour and a half and while I was quite tired by then, my feet at least felt really quite alright and my knees at least had not got worse. No more hobbling in any case, thank Heaven.
Today, Sunday, was very misty so we got into the car with our cameras and headed out to a wood that has some brilliant trees. We wandered around in this dripping magical forest, pretty much on our own:
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