It was just about three weeks ago when I had an interesting experience with Panther. Unfortunately, while Panther managed to stimulate all kinds of terrific creativity, he also somehow managed to somehow put my leg out of joint, as it were.

Well, that was two weeks ago, and I still don’t like to complain, but since then I’ve been able to sit at the computer productively less and less each day. The pain has been increasing, and I was saving my Vicodin pills for serious episodes (i.e. when I screamed). And walking around with a cane all the time was starting to get old…especially in public, when people saw me and assumed I was old. Anyway, my leg started getting numb at random times and then all the time, so I made an appointment to see the doctor, which was today.

Just a few hours before the appointment, I was suddenly seized by a pain that felt like the mother of all cramps in my calf (as opposed to the mother of all calves, which would be a giant cow…but I was ready to have a cow anyway by this time). Somehow I had the presence of mind to check my leg muscles, and there were no knots, cramps, Charley Horses, or anything similar. It was just pure acute unmitigated pain with no apparent cause.

How bad was it? I called upon God, Panther, Jennifur, Susan, all known spiritual entities and beneficent demons, and used several dozen colorful metaphors. I called Susan’s voicemail to tell her I loved her, just in case. I was in very poor shape indeed.

Suddenly it stopped.

Of course, I expected it to start up again at any moment, but I took the opportunity to take a shower, get dressed, eat, and do all those things people do before going to the doctor. I wanted Steven with me just in case the pain struck again while I was driving, so I left as soon as he got home from school.

I was sure the doctor would tell me I had a blood clot in my leg that was about to break loose and kill me, but she decided my problem had all the symptoms of some sort of nerve damage or displacement (my mother always told me I had a lot of nerve). So tomorrow I’m off to get X-rays of my hip and pelvis, which doesn’t worry me because I’ve already had children.

And the kicker: all that jumping around I did with the non-cramp (or was it an anti-cramp?) must have jiggled something back into place, because virtually all the previous pain has been gone since then. Either that, or Panther and Jennifur really did manage to cure me…which wouldn’t surprise me much at this point.

Tags: agony, cane, cats, healing, leg pain, Vicodin

OK, I admit it.

I haven’t been talking about it because I hate to feel like I’m complaining, but I’ve been in some pain since last Sunday’s incident with Panther when he sat on my hip. For the first two days or so, my pelvis was completely out of whack, and I must have been walking funny because the pain switched to my ankle. OK, we have elastic braces and things around for that, so I put one on and hobbled around and it started to feel better.

My mistake was doing any hobbling at all, I suppose, because I wanted to be productive since I felt energized again. But instead of setting up my laptop in the bedroom like I had done when Glory was sick, I hobbled into my office and around the house. By Tuesday I was on Vicodin to cut down the screaming (OK, it really hurt at times).

Unfortunately I compounded all this folly with some more. Susan had been planning a special day with the family, including Scott and his girlfriend, and I didn’t want to let her down. Since she wanted to visit a local sake brewery, I came up with the brilliant idea of bringing my camera, so I would have an excuse to bring my new monopod, which is sturdy enough to use as a walking stick, which I needed by this time as the front of my leg now hurt when I walked.

Walking around using the monopod as a walking stick — really a cane, since I put my entire weight on it — seemed to help quite a bit. I took a few decent pictures but I did way too much walking. So by Wednesday night I was on double doses of Vicodin and luckily I found another prescription around. By this time, what with the pills and the stick, I was starting to feel a bit like Gregory House, M.D.

Today I finally actually had a seriously good idea and asked Susan to look up tendonitis, since it seemed to be things rubbing inside my leg that were hurting. Sure enough, staying in bed with an ice pack helped more than anything else I’ve tried. And hopefully, nothing else will come up, because the pain has been keeping me from focusing on writing more than anything else.

Tags: agony, cane, leg pain, tendonitis, Vicodin, walking stick, yikes