After 14 years or so of this, I am still amazed that Stu can deal, does deal so well with me. It still sucks though.

He came home last night and you know how it is, you want the weary traveler to come home to a perfect home, candles in the window, carols at the spinet….oh wait, sorry, I’m channeling “Mame”. But while I knew it would be like 10 pm when he got home so I couldn’t exactly have dinner waiting, I so wanted things to look well, duh better than when he’d left.

Nah, not chez roscoe. Things probably looked DIFFERENT but not better.

So he’s been in Florida and gods know what his internal clock is doing after 6 days of Florida. Humidity yuck, getting up and going places, airports, you know. What he did not need (ok, neither did I, honest) was the 3 am attack of the “shit what’s wrong with mes?”

For some time I’ve had what might be/have been an astonishingly bad foot cramp. But it’s not, at least not mostly. Probably. Foot cramps suck I know, especially when you get them (little bastards) when you’re all snug in bed. But walking off a cramp – which used to work – is no longer an option. It’s also clear that it’s not a muscle thing, not solely. I had a few of these night-time icky things show up starting about a year ago. Recently, it’s about once a month. I went to my doctor who thought the podiatrist should see me. She had I already had me on things for cramping and she recently talked to me about everything from metatarsal problems to plantar fasciitis. I’ve had one – this ain’t it and it’s pretty clear it’s not the other. The podiatrist thought it unlikely that it’s coming from my feet. If you know/have spinal stuff, you know how often pain from spinal nerves shows up in your arms, your legs, your everything. It hurts HERE, but it’s from THERE. It’s not probable that it’s neuropathy, from the way I’ve heard that described. I don’t know what it is. Every time it shows up I think it’s a fluke and will go away. That’s no longer an option.

I’ve also been getting a tightening sort of pain behind my left knee. It is so impossible to describe.

The only thing that’s “fixed” these sort of cramps is ice; If I put the foot on an ice pack, or put an ice pack on the foot long enough, it eases. I honestly don’t know if the ice does it or if it just eases on its own. Who the hell cares, right? What I know is it does stop.

Last night was bad. I had flare-ups in both feet at the same time. Mind you, an hour before I had grabbed an ice pack because one foot was cramping and my knee was acting is if it would go all the way. It calmed and I went back to sleep. An hour later, blammo. And I had to wake Stu to get my ice from the freezer – we ended up with one ice pack (the 2nd one was on the floor near the bed) and one bag of frozen peas, bless their little green souls. It began in my calf and went down into my feet, along the metatarsal. And I came close to yelling until it went away. Which it did. Totally and we fell back to sleep at something like 4:30 am.

So Stu got to go to work jet-lagged with 5 hours sleep LESS the ½ hour of dealing with this shit. I got up an hour later. I called the orthopedist because I didn’t know who else to call. After several people talked to me, it was decided that even though he said “call if you have pain” since he is, yes indeed, an orthopedic surgeon, as I’ve been saying somewhat all along, he’s not the guy for me. Surgeons operate. He can’t do that on me. There is no one out there who is exactly for what is wrong with me. There are metabolic folks who can do all sorts of tests to figure out WHY this is but in 15 years, no one has thought that would resolve a thing.

I have an appointment now in a month and a half – don’t you love it? - with a “physical medicine” specialist, a “physiatrist” who, thinks my orthopedist’s assistant, can help me. I need something. Someone who can look and see what’s wrong without coming at it from “we can’t operate” perspective which is the training and perspective of all surgeons. The rheumatologist? Sure I can go back to him – he’s good but this ain’t his area either. One of the weirdest things I find is that the doctor I’m seeing is female AS ARE MOST OF THE DOCTORS in this clinic at the hospital. I looked it up. I have theories about this, lots of them and wonder how true it is in general that this is a specialty that attracts women. I sure in hell hope so.

Oh crap anyway. The pain, you should know, is totally absent but I’m not breathing well today. I keep expecting something to go boom. And wondering how many more times that will happen. I have the doctor’s phone number and plan to call every week or so to see about a cancellation because the way things are going, this will happen at least one more time between now and the appointment.

And I so wanted to meet him at the gate with vegetable soup and cookies. Okay, not REALLY. I would have settled for a good night's sleep. Fuck anyway.