Yzjdriel

Saw the foot doctor today. One issue was easily resolved - the black spots on the bottom of my foot were dried blood from some unknown source. Easily scraped off. No infection.
The other issue ... not so easily resolved. My second toe continues to be a source of discomfort and infection. The antibiotics are still not working like they're supposed to be working. Intravenous antibiotics would not be worth the hell that they put me through - I'll be damned if I have to go back to a nursing home again.
So, we amputate. Partial amputation of toe number two of my right foot. This will get rid of the infected bone, and it will get me one step closer to a knee replacement. Two thumbs up.
Amputation day is about two weeks from now. Bad timing, but you do it when the doctor can do it.

Good Lord, your health comes first! This sounds really scary. Please promise me to take good care of yourself!
Damn straight I won't.

That, in a word, sucks the big one.   No, wait that's 4 words...  You know what I mean.

The foam rubber isn't helping. My knee is too badly damaged. I never really have pain from it when I'm standing or walking, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. I mean, I've never been able to put weight on my knees, but I didn't know how pinpoint the pain was—or at least, I'd forgotten. My last diagnosis was back in 2010.
But this is incredibly bad. I may give up trying to use the knee-scooter altogether because of the pain. Time to see a knee doctor, I guess.

I seem to have woke up headache-free this morning. Let's see how long it lasts.

Update: the burning sensation has gone, leaving only the tightness, which is fading. Problem areas remain just above my hip, with continued sensations of tightness there. The hospital called to check up on me - they said this was more or less a common reaction that I should be done with in no more than a week or two, if that long.
I've been sleeping with my head on a pair of stacked pillows to keep my spine straight. Seems to be helping, since I wake up from each oxycodone-induced nap with a little bit less tightness.

The tightness in my back is almost gone, which is nice. Another nice thing is the fact that I can once again lift my left leg more than about 4 inches off the ground. Before, I couldn't lift it onto a chair or other raised surface to help with putting on shoes, getting into a car, or drying off after a shower. This was due to pain linked to one of my spinal nerves. Now that those nerves have been ablated, I no longer feel the pain and can once again lift my leg. It's like someone hit a light switch and turned off the pain - a wonderful sensation.

Yep - I'm sick, although it's with acute sinusitis. That means 10 days of Augmentin for me and a reschedule of my first back procedure to January 24th. Grr.
On the upside, I did get a Starbucks peppermint mocha out of the deal. Yum.

Surgery is tomorrow (Friday). I check in at 8am for a 10am procedure. My blood tests and paperwork were done yesterday, so it's all over but the cutting. Mrs. Prof told the surgeon that she was worried about my "brittle bones," so he said he's going to use a heavy-duty plate inside me, along with five or six screws. (The ankle surgeon only used eight screws at most in one of my broken ankles.) I fear I'm going to have one hell of a lumpy bone once this is finished.
Healing time is estimated at a month.
The up side is that I'll have a much stronger metatarsal in the event that I should stumble again. I'll also have sort of a hard hat in case I drop a bowl of custard on my foot.

You are in our prayers, Prof.

I'm writing from room 211 in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Rockwall, Texas. My swollen feet and lack of equilibrium have landed me in here. I'm on two different IV antibiotics (Zosyn and Vancomycin) that have to be infused 3-4 times a day. This is all thanks to what they're now calling "cellulitis," a bacterial skin infection.
How they let it get this far without catching it I'll never know.
They're looking to move me to a skilled nursing center as soon as they can get approval from my insurance company. Until then, it's hospital food, needle pokes, and mass interruptions every two hours.
These past two months have been very hard. I could use a flower or two.

A fair point.  Thought I'd ask on the off-chance it was indeed you.
What's that, my boy?
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Glad you’ve still got your sense of humor.
Hopefully this is as simple as dropping the BP drugs.

Oof, Prof!
I just did a thread binge to catch up, and boy howdy have I missed a roller-coaster!  Hopefully things go well from here on.

I have had a nasty turn for the worse.
I first reported trouble with the second toe on my left foot back in February, specifically with an ingrown toenail. The toenail had to be removed, and I was placed on antibiotics for the infection that had developed around it.
I've been on antibiotics of one kind or another almost non-stop since then. The infection never did completely go away. I had Silvadene cream and other ointments prescribed. None of them totally wiped out the infection.
In the past few weeks, the toe itself has become extremely painful to the touch. The infection was just a small spot on the outside, but the pain involved the skin covering the two end bones of the toe. My podiatrist had no explanation. A week ago, I began to experience swelling in both my legs from the foot to the knee. Walking became almost impossible. The podiatrist finally ordered a nuclear bone scan to see if anything was wrong with the bones of the toe itself.
As it turns out, I have a bone infection. Osteomyelitis of the tip end bone and possibly the second bone. There's no way to confirm with a biopsy or MRI, since the bones are so small. He gave me two options - a referral to an infectious disease specialist, or amputation of the toe. I had an appointment with my regular doctor to discuss an upper respiratory infection later that same day, so I decided to let him consult on the decision.
My doctor immediately recognized what was going on with my foot and legs, and connected the two. He said that the bone infection was causing the swelling (edema) in my legs. He prescribed a diuretic for the swelling, but couldn't do much about the pain since I'm already on oxycodone. He then checked out my mouth and throat and confirmed the upper respiratory infection, complicated by a case of thrush in my mouth (a fungal/yeast infection). He switched out my antibiotic to Augmentin and added Fluconazole tablets to my already huge mix.
In the end, he ordered a stat referral to an infectious disease specialist in an attempt to save my toe. I'm hoping the referral comes as early as Monday. I doubt it will, but I'm going to ride them hard on the matter. This hurts too bad to leave it alone.

Had a pair of steroid injection procedures into my back last Friday at the hospital. One was into my lower right side of my back , while the other was into my sacroiliac joint (basically, my tailbone) on my left side. The latter was done to fix, believe it or not, a problem with my left leg. I couldn't lift it onto the threshold of a car in order to enter, or up onto a stool to dry it off after a shower. The pain was excruciating.
After the procedure, half my butt was numb for a day (the left half, obviously). I gave it a test the next day. Carefully, I lifted my left leg and put my foot on a chair.
No pain! None at all.
Today marks four days since the procedure, and I still don't have any pain lifting my left leg. It's almost like I never had any pain there in the first place. The story with my right side is a bit different: just a tiny amount of relief. Still, I consider the left side relief a miracle.

Yay for no problems!  That's a very big plus on this medication.  The needing to sleep is an obvious minus, but you can plan around that requirement, and pain waking you up at night isn't something you should be dealing with.  So yay!

12:32 p.m. CST 20171122. I turned 54 since my last update. Don't think it helped.
The past couple of days have been difficult. I've been laid out and sleeping for most of the time. Not much to do during the time, but I could have come up with something if I'd been awake. Pain, headaches, and a sore throat have made that next to impossible. Add to that a cluster of little blisters on my right knee that came from who knows where and you can see why I've had trouble with the past couple of days. Geez, one thing at a time, please!
At least I'm up today. I'm not very functional beyond checking e-mail and updating add-ons (NoScript is out for Firefox Quantum! Yay!), but I'm going to try and push it. Let's find out what happens.

I love my life but oh, you kids!
(I'm 58. My mate is 40 with a couple weeks shy of 21 years of experience.)

I know. It just looks narrower with each doctor visit I make.

I described myself elsewhere as loopier than a toucan chasing after a fruit cereal.

5:31 p.m. CDT 20171025. Well, as you can see ...

I made it through the surgery.
I'm still sore from the implants going in, so the pain relief hasn't really kicked in yet. I'm going to be sore for a couple of days.

At least they'll have free valet parking at the hospital.

Woo for surgery date!  Wooo!!
We're in the home stretch now.

Woo for surgery date!  Wooo!!
We're in the home stretch now.