Oh, how I suffer...

  What can I say? Eighteen months since my last entry.  Well that's just not good enough! I shall give myself a good, stern talking to and ensure that it doesn't happen again.

  Okay, first things first. Reet's cancer has progressed. The meds she was on have stopped working so now she has to go to the second stage of treatment. This will entail going into the chemo ward once a week for an infusion. It will be a long winded affair so we'll have to write off the whole day but, given the options, it's a small price to pay. One brighter note is that this next wave of treatment doesn't have as many side effects as the last so in some ways she should be feeling a little better. The myloma is still getting worse though and it's beginning to hit home that Reet only has three to five years left. Of course she could go on longer but according to her specialist that really isn't likely. As I said, it's a sobering thought!

  Compared to Reet, my own health is hardly worth mentioning, but, of course, I'm going to. The thing is, although my health issues aren't as urgent as Rita's, they take up a huge part of my life and can't be ignored. I'll give a quick run down and you'll see what  I mean.

  I have type two diabetes; high blood pressure; high cholesterol; sleep apnoea and an enlarged prostate. As well as these I also have a replacement knee which, although better than my original knee, still gives me some pain and I have ongoing osteo-arthritis in my other knee which is painful as hell! You see what I mean? Each ailment, of itself, isn't too bad, but putting up with them all at the same time can be draining, to say the least. And the pills I have to take!! Sheesh!

  So anyway, I do try my best not to moan about these aches and pains but sometimes they take their toll and I get to feeling sorry for myself and wondering 'why me' etc. The wallowing doesn't last long though and mostly I dig in and just get on with things.

  However, I was walking the dog a couple of months back and I trod on something which caused my foot to shoot forwards and I ended up falling over and looking and feeling like a fool, especially as a passing car pulled over to see if I was alright. Made me feel very old I can tell you. The point is though, I did some damage to my ankle and the tendons around it. I managed to hobble my way home with the mutt pulling me all the way and collapsed on the sofa in extreme pain. My ankle was swollen for a few days and the dog walks were shortened to a short trip around a very small block. 

  When the swelling had gone down I ended up with a terrible pain in my heel caused by something called Plantar Fasciitis. I won't go into detail except to say it's extremely painful and almost impossible to walk with this condition (look it up if you're curious). What you have to understand is that I was already in pain from both my knees and now this. Let me tell you now, it is impossible to limp on both legs at the same time!

  So anyway, that was something like two months ago and since then I have been to the doctor three times. First visit, be gave me some physio exercises to do. They worked a little but didn't last. The next visit, he booked me in for a steroid injection and, in the meantime, suggested I get a ''night splint". Basically, this is a plastic boot that holds your ankle/heel in the correct position to aid heeling. You have to wear this thing in bed, hence the name. Well, I bought one, twenty quid from Amazon. (Where else? Try shopping online and avoiding Amazon, I swear it's impossible!) 

 I wore this contraption the first night and, in the morning - a transformation! Honestly, I couldn't believe how much better things were. So much so that I considered cancelling the steroid injection.

  But I didn't do that right away. I thought I would give it a day or two to see if the pain came back. Well actually, the pain hadn't gone away completely so I wore the boot a couple more nights but without further improvement. Oh, and in the meantime I developed another crippling pain in my other leg. It was like a constant cramp in the calf muscle and no amount of stretching would shift it. Honestly, you have no idea how hard it is to walk an excitable dog when you have two arthritic knees, a severe heel pain and a vicelike cramp all going on at the same time! By this time you can bet I was feeling sorry for myself, and to be honest, I felt more than a little entitled.

  The doctor said  plantar thingummy-itis takes quite a while to go away so I may need to be patient. I told him I'd had it for two months already and he replied "Yes, I know. It could take up to two years!" That shook me I can tell you. No way could I put up with this for two years!

  So, I had the injection - yesterday, as it happens. The doc says it will get worse before it gets better. Oh wonderful, just what I needed! As I write, it is the following morning and all my pains are still with me. The plantar fasci-wotsit has eased a fair bit and the cramp is slowly easing off each day. The knees, well, the knees are constantly painful, the severity affected by the weather, depending if it's damp, dry, hot cold,humid... Well you get the idea. But I've lived with the knee pain for the best part of thirty years so I'm kind of used to it and just accept it.

  I'm wearing my boot at night, doing the physio during the day and waiting for the steroid injection to do its thing.  Meanwhile I have upped my pain killer quota and the dog is  getting three short walks per day instead of two longer ones and will no doubt expect it every day from now on! Oh well, at least someone is benefitting from my discomfort.

  Well, that was a much longer entry than I planned.  See, I may not whnge about my problems very often but when I do, boy can I go on!

  B. X