Strange Days Indeed

Something funky is going on. I don't know what to make of it. I wrote a little about it in my previous post. I had a thumb and wrist that wouldn't heal. I originally began having problems with it in March. No explanation. But it was hurt like hell and wouldn't heal. Around the time I went to the doctor I was having odd pain in my left knee. Then my ankle. And I didn't do anything to either one of them. They just hurt. No explanation.

Since then, I went to the doctor. Doctor gave me some sort of steroids for inflammation. The steroids seem to have solved the problem with my right hand. It doesn't bother me anymore. But my left hand is another story. While I was at the doctor my left pinky was swollen in the center joint and stiff. I couldn't figure out why. Maybe I did something to it? I didn't mention it. I figured the medication for my other hand would take care of it.

By the time I had taken all the doses of steroids I was prescribed, my right hand was mostly OK. My left pinky was only so-so. And as it healed, or seemed to, my left middle finger began to get stiff in the same joint, the middle joint. There is no reason for it. I did nothing to it. So for a time both my left pinky and left middle finger were pretty useless. I couldn't make a fist or open my hand all the way. Either extreme was just not possible.

Meanwhile, every afternoon, when I'd get up from my desk, my left knee was stiff. It wasn't stiff like it was swollen or injured or anything. It was just stiff like it didn't want to work. And if I tried to turn my foot to the left or right, it wasn't going to allow it. I'd walk around the office and it would mostly work the stiffness out. But still, there is no reason for it in the first place. Something is wrong.

My ankle, which was mysteriously aching without any cause, had mostly stopped bothering me. Every now and then it comes back, but not much.

My back, which I had hurt, would stop hurting when I did some ab exercises. Now it just aches, as if it has nothing to do with any injury.

Today I went back to the doctor. They took a lot of blood. They're going to send it away for a lot of tests, some of them for some seriously unpleasant stuff. I'm hoping all the results are negative. I'm hoping this is all just a freak thing and it is going to go away just as mysteriously as it appeared. But we'll see. If the tests don't show anything, they may have to take more blood and do more tests.

In the meantime, I finally got my bike back from the bike shop. It's all fixed up nice. Both the front and rear deraillure have been replaced. It rides nice again. Of course, with Autumn fully here now, it gets dark before I get home from work, so I wont have very many opportunities to ride it for about 6 months.

So, It's Wednesday

So I wrote this big old post, and then I looked it over and decided I didn't want to do anything with it. It was kind of fun to write, but I didn't quite think anyone would enjoy it as much as I did. And since I already got most of my enjoyment out of writing it, I couldn't think of a good reason for posting it and hoping anyone would read it.

I talked to a counselor today. He used to specialize in marriage counseling. Now he's doing all sorts of counseling. We met at a chicken place that I'm pretty sure serves only food that has been thoroughly soaked in heart-attack-inducing oils and nothing else. Everything I ate, once it went cold because I was talking instead of eating, had that cold cooking oil nastiness to it. I don't know how to explain it, but its like a kind of coldness that sets off instincts in your brain that seem to be saying, "don't eat that. It's seems nasty because it's killing you. It's blocking up your arteries with partially hydrogenated trans fats that will still be with you after you've been dead and buried a good 20 years." So I ended up throwing a good bit of my lunch in the trash. And it was probably for the best.

My wrist is hurting me again today. This is really driving me crazy. I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks now, and I didn't hurt it in the gym, and it didn't hurt at all while I was last in the gym, but it just keeps hurting like hell. I know it is getting colder outside, and that affects things, but I don't even recall injuring this wrist. It was the other one, the one not hurting, that I totally screwed up in a football game and then re-aggravated while weight lifting. This just makes no sense to me.

Even worse, last weekend while touring a cotton gin facility (yes, seriously) my knee started to hurt so badly that I thought I was going to be sick. And I haven't done anything to injure my knee lately, either.

I think my body is plotting to assassinate me!

Listen, with as much pain as I have been in lately, you would think I was the one doing this: