Apr 7

 As inconceivable as it is, my foot has gone from bad to worse.

Awesome.

The gout, as far as I can tell, has now left the building entirely, albeit my foot and toes remain swollen and awkward. What definitely remains however is the alleged tendonitis.

Which to be clear, hurts like a mother fucker.

It has made a steady progression from, hurts when you put weight on it. To blindingly hurts when you put weight on it. To hurts regardless of what you do. To hurts blindingly regardless of what you do.

Sleep, that thing I have a difficult relationship with in the first place, has become disastrous.

I cannot sleep without the effects of a painkiller. And like clockwork. When the pain wakes me up. My leg starts jumping because the restless leg syndrome is kicking off tickled by the pain, it is inevitably bang on the time that a painkiller dose wears off.

I did a little snootling about it yesterday, because, it was bad, and, jesus christ, what I am supposed to be doing about this ? Not a lot it turns out. Painkillers. Cold compresses. Elevate. Great. I have judging from the descriptions Acute Tendonitis. Although it seems more multi dimensional than those descriptions, but definitely the bright sparkly pain if you so much as look at it.

In the rich tapestry of pain pallete, this is a different pain from the gout, albeit, on paper they kinda feel the same. At the top end is that blinding instant white hot electric knife pain. But it's not even that. I've cut myself many times. Sometimes, really bad. And that pain is not this pain. This is like, that height of toothache pain where it shifts from a horrible ache to that zap of electricity when you ping it. Except it's worse. It's prolonged. And higher.

But all of them are subtly different. Hard to explain. The stabby white hot pain of suddenly irritating a bit of gout is a different stabby white hot pain to this.

Also the ache is very intense.

Annoying it also shifts continually - no movement from me, no touches, nothing. And you can feel the pain rolling around and changing of its own accord.

Ho hum.

So I have something of a routine.

When it eases, sleep.

This is interrupted by the nerve jangling restless leg. A deep itch inside my leg that builds and then, kapow. Your leg kicks and twitches. Which is bad enough in and of itself. But. This also then makes my heel area contract and you get a blinding pain spike from that. This repeats every couple of minutes until I can't stand it anymore.

I then take Ibuprofen. Half a biscuit. Water. Flick the TV on for 10 minutes whilst the pills work and to take my mind off my twitching leg and the pain.

When it quietens, turn the TV off. Sleep.

Put off moving as long as possible. After two or three of these repeated blocks of time, painfully hobble to the loo, pee, come back.

Rinse and repeat.

At it's best it settles down to a grumble and I can either play games or watch TV without groaning.

Other stuff.

Athena is doing ok. Seems largely stable. She is monitored very closely. Every wobble. Every twitch is noted. And for sure sometimes she has a bit of a stumble. A bit of a wobble. But overall. Stable.

Today however Hazel noted that she was sick on an empty stomach, not long after her first pill.

This is generally not something to get super worked up about with a dog. Dogs have a different relationship with throwing up than we do. It's a lot less of an event in them, and a lot more routine. If it happens repeatedly, then you have an issue. If it happens once in a while - you're fine. Canine digestion and eating is one of - eat absolutely anything, including rotten, bacteria laden crap. Digest it super quickly so it doesn't have chance to kill you. Poop. And if that is a little off. Vomit shortly after eating absolutely anything and carry on like nothing happened. Possibly even re-eating the vomit.

This isn't as stupid ( to us ) as it looks. It's a garbage can evolutionary thing designed to let dogs eat anything and get away with it without becoming sick or dying. Humans evolutionary strategy is more picky. Be a lot more careful what you eat. But digest it slower - extracting more out of it - and vomiting is reserved for the cataclysmic. With a higher risk of dying if humans accidentally eat something real bad for them.

In any case. Because Athena is under super careful watch, and missing a pill is, uh huh, concerning, its being scrutinised. As a result she's missed at least one of her med doses, and possibly two.

The interesting thing is that so far she's not showed any decline in condition.

This is not the reduction in painkiller test that was planned. It might however be proving a point.

Observing how she does, but, it could be maybe dropping at least one of the painkillers maybe very doable. Which will then be easier on her system.

My sister has said she will be coming up next week for a flash visit. I know why. She's going to drop off a kitchen appliance she doesn't want anymore. Gifting it to Hazel. I am buying my sister a different new one to offset it. Which she was at pains to tell me I didn't have to do. But I felt like it was a fairer - and happier - exchange.

I am not sure I will be able to do shit with my sister. My mobility is terrible. And with my foot actually worse this last 48 hours, yikes, I might not even be able to hobble out at all. The flip side of this is that my sister also has killer allergies. And fluff bomb Athena is her kryptonite. Which makes the prospect of spending any length of time with my sister at this point, pretty tricky.

I will do my very best to painkiller up my ass, suck it up, and see if we can at least go out to a pub.

My tendonitis will not thank me.

But fuck it.