My Left Foot is not in the grave, OK?
THE 10 words are haunting me still. But first, the lead up to it. My left foot was suddenly really sore. Out of nowhere. Under what you might call the arch. I stood up to walk in the office on Monday and the foot nearly went from under me. I was hobbling around like someone who was putting it on, like a comedy limp, a bad actor.
The worry was, I knew I hadn’t twisted it or banged it or anything. I hadn’t even been walking much over the weekend. And when I do big walks now I do them in my professional running shoes with all the support. So I was slightly bothered. Obviously cancer is always in the background in these situations.
But I calmed myself. I contacted my friend, the amateur doctor. Technically she has no healthcare credentials. But she is a very enthusiastic amateur and I imagine she has a better cure rate than most conventional medics. She has a great blend of old wives’ wisdom, a smattering of medical stuff she has picked up, and most of all she has the desire to heal, the slight God complex that all good physicians need.
She works on minimal information. I gave her the bare bones in a text. She diagnosed a cramp. But the only kind of cramp I ever got was one that lasted two minutes and was fixed by stretching the foot. Yes, she told me, but sometimes, in a cramp situation, the muscles around it can go into spasm, and prolong the agony. I needed to alternate hot and cold on it, rolling a bottle of frozen water over it and then applying a hot water bottle. Six or seven minutes each, hot, cold, hot cold. Her diagnoses and her treatment plans are surprisingly specific for an amateur, but that very specificity suggests a confidence that is infectious.
I hobbled to a taxi and went home and started the treatment. I threw a bit of anti-inflammatory cream and tablets into the mix as well. I had gone to someone else for a second opinion (also nonpractising and without what you might call conventional training) and she had confirmed the muscle spasm cramp diagnosis, advised some anti-inflammatories and assured me it was fine, in an extreme situation like this, and in the very short term only, to mix cream and tablets.
It wasn’t gone in the morning. But it was a bit better. So I decided I should try and walk on it. The walk into work improved it. But I was getting worried that the overcompensation with the pain was going to start affecting other areas. I was imagining that my spine and my head and my legs were all out of whack.
One of the chemists near work specialises in medical equipment — orthotics and whatnot. So in I went for a diagnosis from an actual healthcare professional, albeit another free one. I ran it by the lady in there and invited her to confirm it was cramp. She was already busy getting out arch support insoles. And then she said it: “Well. None of us are getting any younger, are we?”
I stopped myself from blurting out “Speak for yourself woman”.
After that bombshell it’s all a bit of a blur. She may have mentioned something about plantar fasciitis. I came to a few minutes later standing outside the chemist with some insoles on and a thing for rolling under my foot.
My initial consultant checked in with me on Wednesday. “How’s the foot?” “More or less back to normal,” I replied, “But with a slight feeling that I maybe crossed a line into something here.”
I’m nearly back to full foot fitness as I write this, and I have ditched the insoles for now. They weren’t helping anything. And once you get the insoles it’s not long before you have a walker and the fuel allowance.
It was a cramp, OK? And some of us are getting younger.