Tag: activity

Medical Update

Happily, I can share a major change for me. My right compression sock has arrived.

TL/DR: my custom sock arrived for my right leg, ankle, and foot, freeing me from the bandages I’ve been wearing. I can bath normally again.

Longer story. As background, I had a few medical setbacks starting about six years ago. It began with an enlarged prostate gland which led to a obstructed bladder and an emergency room visit. A catheter was inserted up my johnson and I wore a bag on my ankle to collect urine for a few days. Of course, I was also put on Flomax.

Around the same time, I noticed some swelling and redness around my ankles. I didn’t know it then, but edema was developing.

I then suffered two broken bones in my left arm during a DIY effort about two years later. That slowed me down. My edema worsened. I’ve always been active. I had been averaging walking eleven to thirteen miles a day. Now that dropped way down. Six became a challenge.

The edema worsened. It was affecting the skin on my lower legs, ankles, and feet.

I then somehow ruptured my right peronous longus tendon. It snapped as I was crossing a street in Oakmont, PA, in May of last years. MRIs revealed it completely severed at my ankle. It’s supposed to wrap around under my foot, but nothing remained of it on my foot’s underside. Besides pain, it created major instability for me. And it slowed me more. My edema worsened.

Surgery was done for the ruptured tendon. The surgeon removed what was left of it and sewed up the end. My surgery wouldn’t heal. Now restricted to this boot to stabilize and strengthen my ankle, I was limited to bed rest for several weeks and reduced activity. The surgery wasn’t healing becaus the edema was worsening, causing my right ankle and foot to balloon.

It was a frustrating spiral.

Along the way, the medical ‘they’ decided that I seemed to be affected with lymphedema. In abbreviated explanation, my lymph fluid was not going up the lymph vessels and was accumulating in my calves, ankles, and feet, causing the swelling. Lymphedema massage therapy to stimulate the lymph fluid flow was set up. Three times a week, I went in and had my limbs from my calves down massaged and then wrapped in cotton, foam, and elastic bandages.

I’d also done some research about my lymphedema. Following advice and guidance from the net, I sharply reduced my sodium intake and heavily increased how much water I drank each day. I also reduced coffee and alcohol consumption, and added specific exercises to combat lymphedema to my daily routines. Part of that are self-massages to stimulate lymph fluid flow. See, from what I can tell, my body doesn’t process sodium well. Sodium is often used as a binding agent in processed food. The same thing was happening to me. Sodium is probably thickening my blood and thickening my lymph (or lymphatic — they express it both ways) fluid, driving the swelling. I drink more water to thin my blood and lymph fluid. I’m still walking six miles a day.

It all seems to have worked. I began my lymphedema therapy in Feb. Within a week, the left side graduated to the custom made compression sock. It was doing very well. I still wear that sock every day, washing it each night by hand. I’ve not had any swelling on that side. They will be providing me several more custom socks for it, and the right side.

My right side, which was the side of the surgery, also quickly improved. I no longer have swelling there, either. In fact, on Feb 19, my massage therapist put in the order for the right side’s custom sock. We expected it to arrive by the end of Feb.

But it didn’t. Concerned that it was lost somewhere, I called the company who provides the sock. They confirmed that they didn’t order it for me until the end of February, nine days after the order was put in. It seems that government bureaucracy slowed its progress, as it had to be approved by the powers before the order was created.

Anyway, the right side sock arrived yesterday. I get to go to physical therapy and have it put on today. And that means, a shower. See, the bandages could not get wet. So I was not allowed showers. I could wrap the bandaged limbs in plastic garbage bags and bath in a tub with my lower legs and feet outside the tub, but man, that wasn’t very satisfying.

So tonight, I shall shower. I suspect it will be long and hot shower, and very, very sweet.

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Floofbit (2)

Floofbit (floofinition) – An animal who seems to have a job to make people get up and move around. Origins: 2007, Ohio, United States, Facebook

In Use: “When her son suggested that Karla needed a Fitbit to remind her to move, she pointed to her young dogs and replied, ‘Don’t worry, I got Crockett and Tubbs to keep me moving.’ As if that was a cue, Tubbs sprang up and started barking and racing around, which naturally drew Crockett into the vortex, and made Karla get up and go to the back door, yelling, ‘You two take that into the backyard.'”

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Another Porsche Dream

Here we go. I dreamed about a Porsche last night. It didn’t belong to me, and it was two pieces.

Let’s step back to what I start remembering of the dream.

I was attending some function being held outside. Pleasant late summer weather ruled. A picnic atmosphere prevailed. I have no idea what triggered the gathering, nor my role. Although I never ‘saw’ other people in the dream for a while, sounds informed me they were present.

The first startling thing was the Porsche.

I came across the rear first. Mounted on a piece of asphalt roadway, the car’s rear was planted in a position that lead me to think that the car was plowing into the ground.

Then, almost immediately, I saw the front end. Facing in the same direction, mounting on a piece of road, it seemed to be emerging from the earth about forty yards away. An older vintage spyder with the top down, it seemed to be a model 365, a car which I like, gray or silver in color.

Oh, what they do for art, I thought. I wondered if it was original, and if it had an engine, and the crazy artist’s identity.

Announcements began from a person holding a megaphone. They were gauzy with distance. I didn’t recognize anything about them.

I discovered that the car belonged to a ‘director’. Little details emerged except the director was a a tall, slender woman with a short blonde bob in a red dress, no one I knew.

The director wanted somebody to drive the car, giving others rides in it for a fee which would be donated to charity. Were there any volunteers?

Silence answered. I spoke up, clarifying what was being asked. I pondered, was there another Porsche involved? Then I discovered the intact car in front of me.

Naturally, I was surprised. I looked at the artwork installation. The road pieces remained but the car pieces were gone. Miraculously to me, they were a solid car. I tried to understand how that happened.

“I’ll drive it,” I volunteered. The chance to drive a vintage Porsche thrilled me. This was going to be fun.

Keys were given to me, and instructions about my agenda. First I was to drive the car to another location.

The director made another announcement; “My car is dirty. I need a volunteer to wash my car.”

Again, nobody spoke so I said that I would do it. That pleased me. Weird as it may sound, I enjoy washing, cleaning, and polishing cars.

In a dream jump, that was done. I was driving the little spyder, top down, on a two lane road. The car, which is a two-seater sports vehicle, now had a big seat, and I had four or five passengers. I could glimpse in the car’s rearview mirror, and heard them chattering, and laughing, enjoying the ride.

I pressed the brake pedal to slow us as we came up on traffic. The car slowed some but we ended up bumping into the car in front of us. It wasn’t a hard impact. I was embarrassed and surprised, and hoped I’d not caused any damage.

The other driver, a bland guy, and I met at the bumpers. He looked at it and shrugged, waving it off. I didn’t see any damage to the Porsche, so I climbed back in and set off.

Though I planned and adjusted for the car’s weak brakes, I almost rear-ended another. This really dismayed me.

“Just as I thought,” I told my wife. “This car has next to no brakes. That’s why it took so long to stop. I’ll need to be careful.”

On those words, the dream ended. I came away thinking that I can step up but exercise some caution. I took that from volunteering when others wouldn’t. However, the brakes weren’t working as expected, hence the idea that caution is needed.

Conversely, my neurons were just having fun with me.

The choices seem equally plausible.

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The Major Dream

The Major had a hole in his head.

It wasn’t a hole, like a hole in a sheet of paper, but a hole, like a hole in the yard that the dog had dug.

The hole took up the left half of the Major’s face. His eye protruded out without any bones to support it. But it was a clean hole, shored up inside, and smooth.

I noticed the Major, Holder by name, Army by service, when I was sent over to him.

I’d been queuing with thousands of others in a writhing river of uniformed personnel. We were preparing to go. I don’t know where. Dressed for battle, I was geared up. I, oddly, was the only one with a helmet. I’d brought my own. Others awaited someone to issue them a helmet, and many were complimentary of me that I’d had the foresight to bring my own helmet.

We finally started moving. I was impatient, as I always am. Irritation grew as I awaited movement and direction. Someone from the middle of people called, “You, with the helmet. Where you going?”

Figuring he meant me, the question and tone pushed my buttons. I was instantly pissed. Shoving through the stream, which rapidly made way for me, I went to the man who called, and stated in a hard voice – the one my teams knew so well from me – “I’m Master Sergeant Seidel.”

The man beamed at me. “Good. Here.” He thrust a piece of paper in my hand. “Take this and go over there.”

Mollified, but puzzled, I did as bid after a moment, and discovered myself in a waiting area. That’s where I met the tall and slender, good-humored Major Holder. Gray-haired and lightly tanned, he wore green fatigues and had no gear, but he was in charge of something. He addressed me, telling me to wait. I wanted to know what I was waiting for, but he turned away.

Others arrived. They began complaining about the impositions they were facing, like me, bothered by the long wait, lack of activity, and general chaos. They started complaining about how bad they had it, noting small injuries, injustices, and frustration.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked them. “There’s a man over here who’s missing half of his face from this war. He’s not complaining.”

They were, of course, words that chastised me, too. But Major Holder, always patient and good-humored, turned and said, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing at all.”

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