Feeling It

Today I had a follow-up to my medical procedure from last week. I received stitches, and as soon as the local anesthetic wore off, it started to hurt quite a bit. So I'm going to rest up and I'll be back tomorrow.

Under the Weather

Yesterday I had a medical thing. Nothing serious, but it needed to be done. Meanwhile I was enduring another cold (very unusual for me to be sick twice in such a short span of time), but now it seems it may in fact be a sinus infection. Yay.

It was kind of careless of me to schedule my procedure for this week, and it's an inconvenient time to be sick, because we're pretty busy otherwise: the Mrs. has completed her graduate school program and is getting her diploma on Thursday. We have family coming in to attend who are staying with us, which means we need to clean our apartment. I don't have a ton of energy right now, and I'm not exactly thrilled about cleaning even when I'm feeling 100%, plus I'm supposed to be taking it easy for a few days, so today will be challenging.

I'm not sure how much I'll be posting this week, but there will probably be something.

Medical Advice

Yesterday I saw a podiatrist. X-rays were taken which showed the presence of a small heel spur, confirming that the pain is, as suspected, due to plantar fascitis. But the small size of the spur means it hasn't progressed far and is still manageable.

I already know the basic parameters of what I need to be doing: ice, not heat; various stretching exercises; heel cushion inserts for my shoes; and wearing shoes with a defined heel. In other words, flatter shoes are bad. I spend the summer in boat shoes and flat-soled sneakers like Vans, so I may have contributed to this unknowingly.

For people whose pain does not get better, the podiatrist typically recommends physical therapy, and if that doesn't help, a cortisone injection. I hope my situation does not progress to that point. I just want to be able to walk with as little pain as possible.

Foot Relief?

Over the weekend I was talking with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and somehow the subject of plantar fascitis came up. Turns out he's had it in both feet, but he went to a podiatrist and got orthotic inserts for his shoes, so this seems like a logical move for me as well.

Christmas Cold

I got an early Christmas present from the Mrs.: the cold she had last week. I haven't had the slightest illness in at least a couple of years, so I'm not too thrilled.

When she told me she felt like she was getting sick, I started fortifying myself with Emergen-C. I thought I was going to come through unaffected, but four days later I noticed a funny feeling and I knew I was getting it. The timing is terrible, as we're now at my family's house in Rhode Island. Now I have to see how quickly I can shake it.

Foot Update

At the risk of boring everyone, my foot still hurts and I imagine it will for a while, but it's been no worse than it was a week ago, when it was the most painful, and has maybe even gotten a little better.

I've been able to keep things more or less steady with ice and the gel heel cushions. Even walking around in New York didn't hurt as much as I thought it would.

Maybe it will start to improve, but at least I'm able to get around normally. My folding cane arrived today; I'd hoped to have it for the trip, but I still think it might be a good idea to keep it in case my recovery doesn't progress as I'm hoping.

Pain Management

The past few days have been interesting, if not exactly pleasant. I've been in considerable pain whenever I walk, but I can't exactly give up walking. Here are a few things I've discovered.

First, pain relievers aren't helping at all. I tried both naproxen and ibuprofen, and neither made any difference. Given that, I don't see much point in taking them. Icing my foot has helped; I just have to remember to do it. Also, stretching works the foot and leg, though that hurts too.

What has also made a difference are gel heel cushions in my shoes. It seems obvious, but they do make walking a bit less painful. Also, I found that using them in a pair of shoes with a relatively flat sole was more comfortable than in shoes with a more defined heel. That goes against advice I read to use arch supports, but I've never had good arches so maybe that's why flat shoes are working better for me. Of course, I don't want to be limited to wearing one style of shoes.

I've been a fast walker my whole life, so it's frustrating to have no choice but to move more slowly.

While looking for canes online, I found that there are collapsible canes, something I hadn't thought about in decades (in college I knew a guy with worse vision than me, who used to use a folding cane to aid in getting around without tripping over curbs and such). If I'm going to choose that option, even occasionally, it would be nice to have something compact that I could store in my bag or in a pocket, so I ordered a folding cane. (My local CVS had only standard canes, and I can imagine myself losing one of those.)

Maybe it's something I'll only use if I've been walking a lot, or if my heel is feeling particularly painful, but I think it would be a good idea to have one around.

Ow

I think I might have plantar fascitis. I've had pain in my right heel for a couple of weeks but I didn't think much about it until it started getting more painful a few days ago. Today I was out for a few hours and did a fair amount of walking, and after an hour or so my heel really started to hurt.

I have not talked to a doctor about this, but some quick online research combined with what I can vaguely recall from our published content where I used to work suggests that PF is the most likely cause. The initial treatment is pain relievers and ice, and stretching is also recommended.

The bad thing is, we're making a very brief trip (just overnight) trip to New York this weekend, and that always means a lot of walking. It wasn't mentioned anywhere in what I read, but I think a cane or walking stick might help, since it would let me take some weight off my right foot when walking. I may try to find one tomorrow. It's a medical aid—and a fashion statement! Right?

Getting old sure is fun...

Annals of the Gross and Exceedingly Embarrassing

After reading this lovely entry earlier today on Universal Hub (warning: don't click if you are eating or are generally sensitive to gross stuff), it reminded me (what does that say about me, btw?) of one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to me.

(Come to think of it, the above warning more or less applies to the following as well...)

Way back more than 20 years ago, I lived in Jamaica Plain for a year. One day I was heading home on the 39 bus. It was winter, and I had a cold. I was sitting near the back, in one of the seats that faces sideways. The bus was fairly crowded, so there were people sitting in all the seats directly across from me.

A cough sneaked up on me, and before I could get my hand up to cover my mouth, I accidentally expectorated onto the shoe of the person sitting across from me. The trajectory was perfect; I could not have accomplished such a feat of bodily rebellion if I was trying, but of course these sorts of things tend to happen beyond our control.

Naturally I was mortified, and apologized profusely, but the guy just glared at me, unwilling to accept the idea that this had happened by accident. And also naturally, everyone else sitting or standing nearby witnessed it. Even though it was a few stops before my stop, I got off the bus immediately out of colossal embarrassment. I briefly considered packing up and moving out of the area that very weekend, in order to avoid the possibility of encountering any of those people on a 39 bus again, but I didn't have anywhere else to go at the time, and ended up staying another seven or eight months.

The State of Things

After patting myself on the back Wednesday, it's time to come back to earth and see where things are.

First of all, this weather is disgusting, and it needs to go away. It's like soup out there. We're in October now, for crap's sake. I want some fall. I have stuff I want to wear, and talk about.

Second, I caught a cold somewhere (probably from the T), and it bloomed yesterday. At first it was just sneezing, so I thought it was regular allergies, but by the time I got home the various other symptoms were evident. I made it through the night with some slightly-expired NyQuil, and hit the drugstore on my way to work for a combo pack of NyQuil and DayQuil with vitamin C. We'll see how quickly I can beat this thing into submission.

You may have noticed that for the past month or so, things have been a bit off schedule sometimes. In particular, I haven't been doing many posts on Fridays. This isn't intentional, it's just worked out that way. A couple of months ago I took on some new responsibilities at work, with an attendant raise, change in title, and step up the job scale. It was a genuine promotion, something I hadn't been expecting.

Things have been going well, but of course, the added duties mean my time in the office isn't quite as... flexible as it used to be. In addition to my monthly deadline, I now have certain weekly and even daily tasks, and the structure of our business means that other people depend on me getting my work done on time.

That's probably the main reason I didn't take a sick day today. I contemplated it once or twice when I woke up during the night, but when my alarm went off I hopped right out of bed without considering staying home. But the truth is I probably should have stayed home. If things go all right today, I may leave early and try to catch some extra sleep.

I'll keep juggling things as fluidly as possible, but there may be days when I can't post, or a post doesn't appear at the expected time. I would love to do more TV writeups, but given the amount of time those have been consuming, I don't see being able to do it on my current schedule. (I had wanted to start a separate TV blog a long while back, but I just don't have the kind of time to invest to do it right.) And if I decide to keep doing Mad Men writeups next year, I may have to reevaluate what form those might take. But that's a decision I won't have to make for a while.

In the Air

The Mrs. has been suffering with a cold this week, and I think I may finally be getting it. Every day I go to work on subway trains with, typically, dozens of coughing and sneezing commuters, and I don't catch anything, but my immune system can't fend off her feeble germs?

The wise and thrifty Giuseppe over at An Affordable Wardrobe, a bit under the weather himself, posted a hot toddy recipe yesterday. If things get worse I'm going to sample it. In the interim, it's time for bed.

Random Bits of Randomness

--I got smart and stayed home yesterday to try to shake my cold. I really should have stayed home on Wednesday, but I felt like I needed to get to a certain point in my monthly work process. Also, I have determined that the decongestant that now comes in most multi-symptom cold medications is for shit. In the aftermath of widespread thefts of Sudafed for use in making crystal meth, companies rushed to reformulate their cold products. That's kind of pointless, since a multi-symptom pill contains more acetaminophen than anything else, and now we're left with cold products that do a lousy job of decongesting. I'm feeling better, but maybe I would have felt better sooner if I'd taken something more effective.

--This morning I headed to the cafeteria looking forward to my weekly Friday treat, an egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin with either sausage or bacon. I stopped eating lunch from this cafeteria a long time ago, but I love their breakfast sandwiches. Usually there are a bunch of them pre-made and sitting in a bin on a warming plate, but today the bin was empty. Sometimes this happens, and the person working the grill behind the counter will make me a fresh one. Today I asked the person for a sandwich, and she told me they had run out of English muffins. Oh, the humanity! Fortunately I've started keeping some breakfasty food at the office, so I had to make do with pineapple chunks and a Quaker Oatmeal to Go breakfast bar.

--Recently I was in the TJ Maxx at Downtown Crossing. I didn't find anything interesting, but on my way out of the store I got to witness something amusing. The store is above street level, so you have to ride an escalator up to it. The down escalator was not operating, so I started walking down. I'd gone about a third of the way when I heard a "Hello?" from above me. I didn't think it could have anything to do with me, so I kept walking. Again, "Hello?" slightly louder, then, "Miss?" That got the attention of the woman in front of me, who stopped and looked up. Since I couldn't keep walking, I looked up too. One of the store clerks was there, leaning over the railing and holding something in her hand. She said, "You forgot these!" and waved a small black item, then dropped it. The woman in front of me caught what appeared to be a pair of socks or tights, looked back up and said, "Thank you!" and proceeded on her way.

Oh Goody, A Cold

The week started off well: the weather was nice, I had lunch on Monday with A Proper Bostonian (something we've been trying to accomplish for a while now), and I love October in general, so it tends to put me in a good mood.

Then on Monday night, it crept up on me. I kept waking up during the night, unable to breathe because my head was so congested. My throat hurt. Yesterday I felt achy and run down in general, and today all of these are worse. Lucky me.

I don't get sick often, and I'm usually pretty careful about potential germ exposure, but when you ride public transit to and from work, there's only so much you can do. An alternate theory is that I was playing with the dog on Sunday afternoon, and her slimy nose accidentally made contact with my lips, yecch. Who knows, though, and does it really matter now? Bottom line: I'm sick.

I need to get to a drugstore to lay in a supply of hand sanitizer, pocket packs of tissues, Airborne, and whatever cold medication looks like it will do the best job. And I really feel like I need some sleep. If I get enough done at work today, I could use a sick day tomorrow and rest.

I really need to get better, because I have a ticket to see The Feelies on Saturday night. They got back together after 17 years, and it's probably been closer to 20 since I saw them live, so I ain't missin' this show.