The good news is that I have felt better for the last three weeks than I can ever remember. Oh, I still have trouble with my thumb, and always will, I’m afraid, but other than that, both physically and emotionally, I can not remember feeling this healthy for the last twenty years or so. A few tweaks of my meds, and a shot in the back, and I am ready to party.
The bad news is that The Squire is having major trouble with his feet. He was in dreadful pain yesterday, and this morning I called his podiatrist, and the doctor had him come in right away.
The bones in his right foot are collapsing.
He has Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome (CMT), which is a degenerative nerve condition. As the nerves die, the muscles atrophy, and if it hits when you are young, the bones “warp” as the muscles pull away. (If it “kicks in” when you are an adult, the pain can be so severe that the patients {usually men} opt to have their foot amputated, so in that sense we are quite fortunate.) The condition is osteoclastic – it leeches the calcium from the bones – and this is what is causing his foot to simply “melt”. He has already lost the bones in several toes, and now it seems to have begun working on this foot.
The doctor says a new pair of shoes, built to support the foot and force it into position, rather than rolling to the outside as it is now, will help “for a while”. Ultimately, the doctor suggests surgery to fuse what bones there are.
Everything that has ever been done to his feet has made the problem worse, rather than better, so he has already ruled out surgery on one level, but he is looking to get a second opinion.
And through it all, he is the sweetest, most even-tempered person I know.
thisendoftheswamp 