downslope

The cell counts are going down now, though I'm still feeling OK. I'd guess I might get to the nadir Wednesday or Thursday. The general feeling is that digestion and metabolism are just sluggish, and everything takes longer to happen. No major drama.

Today's events were enlivened, if that's the word, by a morning visit to the podiatrist. This was scheduled back in July, when my right leg and foot were seriously uncomfortable with some combination of muscle strain and nerve damage. Right now, my leg feels fine, although there is a spot in my right foot that's bothered me for many years--the neurologist thought it was a neuroma, and the podiatrist (who, this being Mayo, was really and orthopedic surgeon) was supposed to consult. I'd meant to reschedule or cancel, but hadn't remembered to do so. It wasn't like I was going to schedule foot surgery with all this other stuff going on.

The appointment took about an hour, and consisted of some of the most excruciating time I have spent here, including the ring extraction. Both the resident and attending docs, but especially the latter, squeezed that foot (and the other one, for comparison) in about 100 spots, almost all of them affirmative in response to the question "does it hurt when I do this?" If I had any ticking bomb secrets to tell, I would have spilled them in the first few seconds.

The conclusion: my feet are all messed up, and maybe there's a neuroma.