Rants and Rambles

One morning around mid-June I looked down at my feet and ankles in the bathtub. They were swollen again. Not too odd; it happens when I’ve spent much time on my feet but not really doing much exercise. My job has me in that predicament often enough, standing in front of a rack of servers or network equipment. I get up and about often enough, usually, from my desktop workstation but not as easily when at a console in an equipment room.

A few days later though and things haven’t changed much. But it looks like it’s only my right foot now. Getting better I guess.

A couple days more and it’s NOT better. While still only my RIGHT foot, it’s not just the right FOOT.  My calf and even to some degree, my knee are swollen. Not as easy to actually make out my kneecap. By the end of June, with some information off the Internet and a little urging from some friends, I decide it’s high time to go see a doctor. It seems swelling of a single limb could indicate a blood clot.

What happens is the blood (fluid) flows with the help of gravity and your pumping heart down into your legs. While standing, the heart with the help of a lot of little valves that stop the back-flow between pulses,  overcome gravity and get the fluids back out of your legs. That is providing something else isn’t obstructing the progress. In that case, the fluids collect between tissues and the leg swells. In cases of lesser obstruction, when reclined or laying with the leg elivated, the flow is easier and the swelling decreases. That’s what I was seeing.

So into the urgent care clinic I went. Blood tests for kidney and liver function and blood count to rule out some general infection came back negative (that’s a good thing; “negative” = positive). An ultra-sound of my leg showed no clots.

So I got the follow-up instructions to get a compression stocking at a local pharmacy and make an appointment to see my regular doctor in a couple of weeks. There I should expect, if there’s no obvious improvement, more tests to check into my pelvic and abdominal regions.

So I SCREWED UP! You see, there’s a very important prerequisite to making an appointment with your regular doctor. You need to HAVE a regular doctor. Mine retired a few years back and I didn’t establish myself with another doctors practice. So it took a month to get in to see one (or should I say, to be seen by one).