Playing Footsies

My left foot suddenly hurts, and is swollen and very tender at the base of the first toe.

I share this with you, not to get your sympathy, though it does remind me how a neglected backwoods of the body can reek havoc on that self proclaimed higher organ that defines us as human, the one that is all grey and fissured.

I tell you of my woeful toe-full because it illustrates the workings of this doctor turned patient but still a doctor's worrying organ.

I am immediately considering infection complicated by my wimpy immunity or gout due to my increased cell turnover with my ITP, or an occult stress fracture, secondary to transplant induced and yet undiagnosed osteoporosis. I see blood work and aspirations, x-rays, bone scans, DEXA tests, MRIs. I see meds and casts and crutches. I see trips cancelled, incisions made, and big operations considered and rejected because of low platelets. I see heads scratched.

All this for what is probably just some minor inflammation of my sesame seed shape bone in the area of concern. It is probably the results of my knees being so out of whack that the biomechanical forces on my little feet are also out of balance. Nothing an Advil and Dr Scholls can't solve.

Doctors are not only over treated by other doctors. They can be over treated by themselves.

I think I will sleep on it. I certainly won't walk on it.