Doctors, Doctors, and More Doctors

The worst possible thing to do when you have a physical ailment is to Google it. I have pretty sound reasoning behind this - it's called leading. If you go to a doctor with swelling, and you've Googled TI diabetes + swelling, you may come up with kidney disease. If you go to the doctor with swelling and you mention kidneys, then they will look at your kidneys. My ankles and legs were swollen badly, and the swelling would not go away. There was no injury, simply massive swelling and pain. Pain as in I felt like my ankles were going to burn off my leg. Ice and elevation were no help overall, but did relieve some of the problem, but I would stand up and it was back to square one.

Back to doctors - Rome Dr says I've quit smoking and started to work out, so my body is "protesting." He refuses any tests or medication, and he tells me it will get better over time because this is all in my head. I seek refuge with my AL Dr. Here's the kidney line. We come up with this is a kidney problem. Of course whenever I'm going to the doctor, there is no swelling and no pain. It hides like an ostrich would hide it's head in the sand. AL Dr puts me on diuretics and tests my kidneys. I wait two weeks, and he wants me to see a urologist.
Rome urologist is an absolute a-hole. I was wasting his time. I had no kidney problems, no swelling, no pain - I'm a hypochondriac and sends this back to Rome Dr who notes this to me on my next visit.

Then one day, for no particular reason, the swelling came back. No injury in mind (but I'll use my usual excuse that I've fallen off my heels again) and I call my Rome Dr to schedule an appointment for him to take a look see. Can't get one for a week? OK. (I work 100 yards from his office at that time and they would not let me come over and just show the extent of the damage). In a week, the swelling has recoiled back to it's turtle in a shell state, and my Rome Dr calls me a seeker even though I've never asked for one pain drug.

At this point, I want to pause and give you a description of my ankles - They are twice the size of my normal ankles. It looks like I have a grapefruit taped laterally around. The swelling is into the top of my foot and I can feel it sloshing like Jell-O when I walk. My legs are swollen twice their size also. They are shiny and have split open in a few places. But it comes and it goes, and it was never there when I saw a doctor.

I had intermittent times of swelling and relief. There was a time when the balls of my feet were VERY sore to walk on, and I sought a podiatrist for it, but he couldn't find any problems either. My point in this entry today is that none of my doctors knew what was going on, and for 3 years I went through cycles of pain and relief. I was fat. That's all. I was swelling because I was fat. Lose weight and problem solved. WRONG!!!

It's Hell getting old, and I'm not even old, though I have the joints of an 80 year old. I want to write this to take into account the events which have lead up to my recent diagnosis. The lies, the cover-ups, the embarrassments that lead doctors and friends to believe that I was merely a seeker, that is, a person looking for drugs, when that was in no sort the truth.

I want to lay out there that I have Type I Diabetes, and I'm a smoker (over the years that status has changed several times). No doctor seems to look past those two facts with the exception of my Endocrinologist who will ask plainly, "What's the problem?" All of the other doctors would merely say, "If you lose weight and quit smoking, you'll feel better." or, "If you quit smoking, your problems will be solved." So I'll take you back to the May 2008 - when I stopped smoking.

The prior May, I had been mauled by Gus, my sister's ankle biting Welsh Corgi, and I had some minor swelling in my ankles (the most affected area). This went away, and it's 2008, I have a gym membership, I weight around 150, and I'm on Nicoderm patches, and I'm committed to going to the gym 3 times a week, and I DO! I'm not smoking at all, and I have made the commitment to get healthy. Wrong! Wrong!!! First of all, I can't stay on an elliptical machine for more than 3 minutes without my knees giving protest. My only thought is, "Boy, what a lard ass I am! I'm so outta shape! Three minutes today, 4 tomorrow." WRONG!!! I excused myself from the elliptical and got on a treadmill. 30 minutes later, sweaty and exhausted, I feel somewhat pleased with myself - no pain, no gain right. I decide to exit the treadmill. Do you know what tread legs are? It's that sensation that you're still on a treadmill when you aren't, and you try to keep up that pace on solid ground. As soon as the treadmill stopped, I got tread legs and tripped off the treadmill. I wasn't hurt at all; just embarrassed. I looked down at my sore ankles in utter shock. Both ankles had swollen out of my shoes. I knew it hurt to walk, but I was new to exercising, and I knew that I simply needed to walk the pain off, but I had no explanation for the nastiness of my ankles.

So, I drove across the road to urgent care, lied and said I twisted my ankles falling from the treadmill, got X-Rays - no sprain (surprise surprise), get an anti-inflammatory, and then go home to ice and elevate. The next day, the swelling and pain is gone.

This would be the first lie, the first embarrassment on the long road to discovering the truth.