pain lesson

One day about two weeks ago, I felt some tinglings on my right foot's Achilles tendon. The next morning when I woke up, the pain became more severe, and was spreading toward the ankle area. Judging from my past experiences, I knew I had passed the time of fighting it off successfully myself, so, though being a drug-averting person, I opened the drawer where I kept some old anti-inflammation medicine from my previous visit to my primary physician, and took one pill for the day.

The next day it got worse. I became walking crippled inside my house. The most tricky thing is stepping up and down stairs. You tend to use the other, healthy foot and leg to carry your whole body weight up and down the stairs in an awkward way, and that could eventually mess up your body structure. I knew this because in one of my previous episodes, I ended up dislocating the hip joint of one leg after a few days of hopping up and down the stairs relying on that good leg.

The pain was now on not only the Achilles tendon, but the whole ankle, and spreading toward the front toes area. But I could still manage to drive the car with it, so that evening I still attended a scheduled training class at Saddleback Church. The class was at Tent 1, and man, for those of you who are familiar with the church landscape, that is the one tent farthest from the parking lot, and once I got off the car, I realized driving with one foot is definitely much easier than walking with two feet on the ground in my situation. Each step of my right foot felt like a couple of big pins piercing right from beneath at me. Blessingly, a good brother attending that same class happened to park right near me at the same time I arrived at the parking lot, and with his company and pleasant chatting, we managed to finish that 100 feet walk in, say, 5 minutes.

The foot was definitely inflaming at its height that night. It was red, swollen from the outside, and burning deep hot inside. I could touch it with my cold hands and felt soothingly warmed by it--it's like I'd got a nature-made thermometer from my own body. But at night, it's excruciatingly painful--everytime I moved the foot, it hurt, and even when I didn't move it, it felt like something is eating my flesh and bone voraciously, and I think I had some head ache too, so I definitely didn't have a good sleep that night.

But guess what I did the next day: I went to Fry's in the afternoon for some computer accessories shopping, and then attended a seminar at the South Coast Plaza Westin hotel in the evening. The hotel was just across a major boulevard from the South Coast Plaza mall, so I parked my car at the mall's lot that's right next to the boulevard, walked a few steps to the street crossing and pressed the pedestrian walk button, then with all the cars ready to gun me down at the delimiter lines, dragged my foot across the 8-lane boulevard to the other side--(picture the scene of an old lady from Pasadena crossing the street). The hotel was then just one block away, it was a side door area I reached, and it's next to their valet parking area. The valet parker there stared at me with a weird look, probably wondering where this funny walking guy came from, and it flashed on me why this is probably one time I had every legitimate reason to have used that valet parking service.. but then, nah, that would be giving up my cheapskate philosophy too easily.

But you don't appreciate how great a job your feet do for you every day until they go out on you. With this bad foot, for example, I could tell the difference between walking on carpet and walking on concrete--one less painful than the other. You also realized how big a deal those special parking spaces and walk ramps and elevators and all that other stuff mean for the disabled, as well as how vulnerable and insecure those less privileged in society must feel in general in their everyday life (back to that old frail lady crossing the street image).

That night I took a second anti-inflammation pill before I went to bed (the recommended dose is one pill per day), hoping it could suppress the pain while I slept. It didn't, but at least the pain didn't get worse either. I continued to take the medicine for another two, three days before I felt the pain had subsided.

But then I decided to see my primary physician. I had withheld doing so because I had visited him several times before on this problem in the past few years and he had sent me to various specialists too--podiatrist, infectionist, rheumatolgist--and none had given me any conclusive answer to the problem. It's not gouts, they say, based on the results of the blood tests they took, but that's about the only thing they are sure of. The podiatrist, through the X-ray and MRI exams I took, suspected I have some miniature deformity between the balls of my foot that rubs up inflammation occasionally; the infectionist and rheumatologist didn't see any obscure bugs or anything unusual in my body or immune system, though at one time some hospital physicians suspected I might have gotten one of those "super bugs" (MRSA) that is anti-biotic resistent. Most of the time, though, they decided it was just inflammation caused by accidental wear or tear (though I didn't recall one happening before the assault) or infection by bacteria from unknown sources, and gave me anti-inflammation and/or anti-biotic treatment. And that's why I decided to visit my primary doctor now, because if it was inflammation plus infection, I might need to get some anti-biotic medicine from him to take along with the anti-inflammation pills I had been taking.

So "here you come again," the doctor greeted me with a smile and I smiled him back, "yes, same-o-same-o problem," I said. Then he brought in my medical records, "Here it is, the first time you came to see me for this, June 2001, the right foot." That I remember, it was when this all started: After playing a sudden, rigorous golf round without any pre-game warm-up, I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain on my right Achilles tendon and came to see him the next day. But then there were records showing I visited him for pains in my left foot, right ankle, left knee, right heel, etc., throughout the past 8 years, and he had no definite answers to what caused them. 

At the end of the visit, he decided to give me some more anti-inflammation medicine, and a prescription for something stronger that I can take if the pain persisted after a couple of days. No need for anti-biotic medicine, though, he said, since I didn't have the symptom--fever or severe head ache--of bacteria infection. I said good-bye to him and went my crippling way. ("Why are you always limping every time we meet?" the doctor made a parting fun with me when I left. Quite a humorous doctor, huh :)

I didn't fill that prescription and stopped taking the anti-inflammation pills a couple of days after the visit, deciding to let my foot heal itself. It's been over a week since then, and I can walk normal again, if only still a bit limpy when I go up/down the stairs--I can feel the tightness and latent pain if I move my foot too rigorously. I have had to stop my daily trademill exercise for the past two weeks too, and gained two pounds as a result. That's pretty painful too!

One bright thing I found throughout this experience, though, is people do care about each other. I am surprised a couple of times by someone asking me how my foot is doing even when I thought I didn't mention my foot problem to them and they shouldn't have noticed it.

So, to you all good people out there, thanks for your concern and I hope this long, unglamorous story about my little lowly foot hadn't bored you to death, and may you all take good care of your body so it'll take good care of you as well!