Blood, Foot and Tears

My visit with Dr. Ralph on Friday went fairly well, all things considered. My cholesterol was down to normal human levels, blood pressure was great and liver was doing just fine. I'm not sure why he brought up the liver, unless liver damage is one of Crestor's side effects. (Yeah, I just checked that and turns out Crestor's well known for its liver damaging capabilities. Mine seems to be unharmed, though, so good news there.)

I was pretty sure Dr. Ralph was likely going to hassle me about my weight, particularly since he's brought it up in all of our previous visits and has seen no evidence of any loss. In my defense, I have actually lost weight between our visits, thanks to the Slow Carb Diet and a brief dalliance with the Mediterranean Diet, where you're supposed to eat exactly like Mediterranean's eat, cause they apparently don't have any fat people over there. I lost weight with Slow Carb, albeit not as swiftly as its chief proponent Tim Ferriss indicates in his book Four Hour Body. My Mediterranean diet was not as successful, however, because I wound up eating pretty much anything I wanted on the grounds that I felt most Mediterraneans would really like Reese Cup Ice Cream if only they'd try a bite.

Unfortunately, our trip to Florida resulted in a binge week that sort of kept going after we got back, earning me a enough return pounds that I was only down a little bit from where I was at my last visit to Dr. Ralph. Secondly, Dr. Ralph's scale is a damned dirty liar, because it said I weighed a full 10 pounds heavier than my own scale at home did this very morning, post-dump. Thirdly, and most damning to my case, is the fact that one week ago I threw my back out buttoning my pants. Yep. Stepped into some pants, went to button them and threw out my back through the sheer power of my fatness.

Actually, the pants in question were not even a tight fit, there was no straining involved and thus it came as something of a shock when I subluxed a rib in the process of buttoning them. I then spent a day unable to turn my head properly or lift even lightweight objects without pain. I followed the wife's advice of stretching on an exercise ball, took some Alieve and felt a little better the next day. Felt so good, in fact, that I did even more stretching and then found myself nearly unable to get out of bed on day 3. I got half out, realized I couldn't go any further and that returning to a prone position was gonna hurt pretty bad too. So I just sat there on the edge of the bed, propped on my good arm until I finally could relax enough to sink back to the bed.

This sort of thing happened to me a couple of years ago--about this time of year, in fact--and lasted about a week before I could get the rib back into place. Despite my wife's manipulation techniques, it remained out of place through this morning.

Dr. Ralph tried a few manipulative techniques for getting the rib back into place, but wasn't quite successful.

Meanwhile, on the foot front... it turns out that the edema the radiologists saw in my MRI wasn't even located in the part of my foot that hurts, but was in the ankle, instead. The part of my foot that hurts still shows Jack Shit as far as any causative elements. Dr. Ralph explained that an MRI is capable of seeing arthritis, but wasn't showing anything that might cause pain in my foot. He wasn't sure if a podiatrist would be able to do much, either, since the one test they could order to show them what was wrong had already turned up nothing. Dr. Ralph said he was open to any suggestions.

I asked about acupuncture, as my massage therapist sister had suggested it. He said give it a whirl.

In the meantime, he recommended not using it so strenuously in exercise, such as when walking or running. Then we had a good laugh, cause the only time I run is when being chased. I explained that I probably would have been walking on it far more strenuously, since power walking is my exercise of choice. However, when I go walking it's with dogs and there's not much way to get good exercise with them stopping to sniff or poop every four feet. I assured him I wasn't putting huge strain on it. But, of course, he also suggested losing weight would certainly do my foot no harm and would put less strain on it.

Now I guess I'm off to the gym, sans dogs.