“Unbeknownst to most historians, Einstein started down the road of professional basketball before an ankle injury diverted him to science”

“Unbeknownst to most historians, Einstein started down the road of professional basketball before an ankle injury diverted him to science” -- Gary Larson

Day 127

What an awful weekend I had! Thankfully I feel great today and hopefully this "incident" will soon be behind me. It doesn't really fit the journey per se, other than to record why I'm a week of exercise, but does go to show life doesn't always go the way we plan once again.

It would have to start on the first day of a three-day weekend when the only way to see the doctor is to go to the ER (and I was so not going to the ER on a holiday weekend unless I was literally dying!). At first there was irritating, but minor pain on the side of my left foot -- within a few hours it zipped up to excruciating -- I'd call it a 9 on the 1-1o scale. We had some leftover #3 Tylenol with codeines so those got me through the night. I spoke to the on call doctor Sunday who said effectively suck it up or go to the ER -- as expected.

Kept it elevated and periodically iced until I could get into my great new PCP yesterday morning. She took me in as her first patient. John was (as you'd expect) great through all of this else I don't know how I would have survived -- I literally could not even get out of my chair without help and had to use a walking stick to hobble around. Stairs were fun -- John on one side and the stick on the other.

Anyway, my PCP said there was a possibility of a stress fracture as I've increased my walking in the last few weeks, but likely it was either a recurrence of gout or some other inflammation. Plan was to xray it to rule out the former and to take 3 days of prednisone (since I can't take any anti-inflammatories this close to surgery) in case of the latter.

So next stop was the hospital. I love SRRMC -- everyone there is great. Lots of teasing for John and I thanks to my walking stick -- hey lady, did you kick him instead of using the stick stuff. As I dreaded, I had to climb up onto an awfully high xray table and put my foot into all kinds of unbearable positions for xrays. I looked at the scrawny tech who offered to help me up and kindly laughed at him. Put my hand on the footstool and said out loud "just suck it up and do it." He was awesome -- said his wife would kill him if he said that. Finally managed to get through it all and with his help sit back up and get back down and then hobble back to the car with John's help.

Next stop was the pharmacy. I know prednisone's side affects are awful, but OMG, I understand now why so many people become addicted to it and why my doctor only gave me a 3-day supply. Other than some hobbling (walking-stick free I might add) today, I feel like I'm in my 20's again. My shoulder that's hurt for almost 2 years now feels great! No wonder athletes love steroids. I feel like I can do almost anything (other than clean the outside of my house -- Fern, you've got to be kidding!).

Thankfully my PCP warned me the prednisone would play havoc with my blood sugar. I have it under really good control and generally have fasting numbers under 100. This morning it was 201 -- yikes! It hasn't been that high in over a decade. So I shot a little extra insulin this morning -- and then an hour later crashed. What a pain -- it dropped to 42 (should be above 60). So I rescued myself and called my (wonderful) endocrinologist. He told me not to worry -- let it go (as long as it stays under 300) and by Friday it should be back to normal. Although not optimal, it won't hurt for just a few days.

John and I attended the pre-op/post-up combined support group session last night again. As anticipated, more good info was shared. One of the pre-op patients asked about hair loss. I'm glad they did as it's a definite concern of mine. Unfortunately it was confirmed that most of the post-ops there did experience this problem. The facilitator noted 50% of people undergoing rapid weight loss do in spite of keeping their protein levels correct. This was a little disappointing to hear, but best to be forewarned. Thankfully it's usually just one growing cycle and comes back -- I recall this being a 3-6 month cycle. I suppose I can live with less hair for a few months for all of the other potential benefits.

Tomorrow's the pre-op prep class. Two hours -- shouldn't be too bad. Hopefully the exercise-nazi RN won't freak out too much over my non-existent exercise since Saturday or my likely weight gain from the prednisone (yes, I'm blowing up with fluid retention thanks to even this small course of treatment). I'm really glad now I've lost so much more weight pre-surgery than I was required to. We have our final weigh-in and review our exercise records as part of the session. Can't wait. Not. The rest I am looking forward to -- bowel prep (not! -- supposedly easier than a colonoscopy prep -- we'll see) instructions and post-op short-term expectations.

To close, I've never been particularly interested in basketball, but I have been in science. I wonder if this ankle thing will send me back to it? I'll have to ask Gary next time I see him. :)