Some Days...

 There are some days I really do not recognize the cranky old son of a bitch who wanders in here and decides to vent some mysterious and foul organ output all over these pages, but I suppose some good news could do the fellow a favor.

And in that department, the good news comes from one of my visiting nurses.

Yeah, that surprised me too.  Now, to be fair, the evolution of my most recent health crisis is utterly, 100%, my own damned fault.  So, in order to make sure I stay honest with myself and others, here we go.

Back in about July of last year, I noticed an unusual itching occurring between and behind my third and fourth toes on my right foot.  As I had been of bad habit of wearing my "sloppy pandemic shoes" without socks I considered the likely evolution of some natural infection or a foot fungus.  As we all know about the eight or so years of my seventeenish in formal educational institutions where I managed to utterly avoid almost everything having to do with modern medicine, I am absolutely, utterly qualified to diagnose absolutely nothing in any sort of knowledgeable capacity.  

So I began by applying common foot-fungus treatments, and - shocking, I know - wearing socks.  The wee voice in the back of my head which was often shushed spoke up and suggested that perhaps professional assistance might be somewhat beneficial.  But the louder voices in the forebrain - you know, the ones you really need to beat holy hell out of before they take over and win with their nonsense - managed to carry the day.  And there were considerations.  

At the front of the list, as is so often as summer here brings peak heat and all the rest around mid July, were thoughts in my head regarding the annual Minnesota Renaissance Festival.  This experience has traditionally been one of my last outdoor hurrahs as I head into the dreaded fall/winter plunge each year in this region.  That is, I have such a wonderful time each year experiencing the festival, I enjoy anticipating the day and the adventures.

And in January of 2020, facing the first full calendar year without my parents or my mother-in-law, it occurred to me that old Father Time might have begun to run out of elderly folks preceding my generation, and begin to seek out my peers and I.  Which thus begat the thought that, if I had managed to cobble together some $180 in January, I might well be able to fling it at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival's web site and purchase what had been something of a mythical item - an annual pass to Renfest.

Then this wayward and evil little email plonked down in my in-box.  It offered a discount sale for a few more days where fools such as I might be able to obtain this near-mythical pass for the discounted price of only $80 per pass, give or take a few pennies, and a processing fee.  

Silly me.  When I did the math in my head, the "Duh" was overwhelmingly high volume.  For you see, when I had two small children, a ticket to this event could be found at some discount, sometimes all the way down to $16 per person.  Which meant a family of four could get through the gates for under $75.  For one day.  As the tickets were not limited to a specific day, but to a year, one could use them any day between mid-August and the end of September to attend this event.  That is, assuming one chose to attend on a Saturday or Sunday during that period, or Labor day, which also coincided with the final day of the State Fair, and this more recent invention of a "festival Friday" which marked the last Friday during the event's annual run, when it opened for business.

But the logical overdrive in my head at the time pointed out that as tickets had now risen to nearly $20 per person per visit, spending $160 for two people to attend this event would be a whopping increase over our annual commitment, but then we need only attend four days to make the tickets 100% worth it.  As the festival typically runs for 18 days annually, finding four, or a little under one quarter of the days, to attend, shouldn't be too difficult.  I was reminded of the long-planned day a group of friends and I spent about 5 hours in driving rain rushing from shelter to shelter and through some rather massive puddles.  Or the year that my new wife and I attended for some 3 hours before a raving migraine destroyed her ability to enjoy anything at all, and we went back home.

The opportunity to return, without additional initial cash outlay, to explore the grounds, was overwhelming.  

And that was before March of 2020.  I plonked my money down and received the email confirmation that I'd be welcomed at the will-call window in, or on limited dates after mid-August of 2020 to roam the festival grounds.  It seemed to me to be the perfect year, after all, it was the festival's 50th Anniversary, and I'd been attending off-and-on since 1979, so it made sense.

Then we all know what happened in March of 2020.  I must rejoice in the rather simple fact that, faced with one of the most terrifying and deadliest epidemics the 21st Century will see, I can hope, I was blessed with an employer who had the foresight and capability to continue operations while asking me and my coworkers to disperse from our office to our individual homes - and take our computers, monitors, and other necessary equipment home and continue to do our jobs.

Or as my lovely wife repeats regularly, "the first major economic catastrophe in our married life that didn't end up biting us in the ass."  A wholly succinct and accurate comment.  If there was an economic downturn that did not deeply bite that rather tender portion of my anatomy between 1987 and 2020, it didn't turn down far enough.  But here I was collecting a paycheck, doing rewarding work, and being recognized by my supervisors and coworkers as a useful and helpful resource.

So it should not have been a gigantic surprise - and it wasn't - when the organizers of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival chose to ... postpone their 2020 get-together.  In doing so, they did notify all who had purchased season passes and the like that their money was not gone, they would simply roll it, with no additional fees or pain, to 2021.  

Which is where this whole detour from my personal health evolution ends.  You see, back in 2018, shortly after starting my new-to-me-then job, I used my last paycheck from the previous job to pay for the family's attendance to the 2018 event.  As it very typically did, the event drove even deeper into me the special nature of the memories I managed to make over the many years at RenFest.  There was the first year we attended, and I got into a verbal sparring match with a fellow who had styled himself a sheriff of some region or other.  He was undoubtedly a paid player in the staff cast, which is how much of the environment was set in those early years, and we discussed a potential for one of us to participate in a duel with another.  

He accused me of cowardice when I offered up a friend as my "first" in the duel, rather than accepting his challenge.  With typical youth over-estimation of their own importance, I simply said "Good sir, it is not a mark of disrespect for you, but rather a respect to the world and what I shall be able to do for it in the future.  I would be remiss should I deprive the other residents of this planet of my sheer genius should I fall by mistake to an errant swipe of your blade."  I can still hear his laughter, and remember the mug of beer he handed me to thank me for the verbal sparring.  Which I had to hand back because I was, at the time, not only not of legal age to consume beer, but also a minor by legal definition.  He roared even more.

That memory serves as a distant second to my favorite Renfest memories.  My most favorite and sacred moments returns to me several times a day, as I recall standing near the giant rocking horse, looking at some booth or other from around 20 foot distant.  I had driven my car full of friends in a group of several vehicles which brought my new-to-me college friends to my favorite place.  They'd all run off in different directions to feed their interests, and I found myself left with the other driver, who was the girlfriend of a fellow who I picked up because her car was already committed with four passengers - and with a 1980s Ford Tempo, one flirted with real mechanical dangers if one crammed five people in the vehicle.  Or that is, mine sure did because it was of questionable mechanical abilities.

But there I stood, looking at this booth, and the young lady acquaintance of mine who was utterly fascinating in the way few girls fascinated me to that time, noticed one of her professors nearby.  And she chose to place me between her and the professor in the hopes the professor would overlook her.

In the hormonally addled brain of young men, few expect logic all the time.  Let's be honest - if it's logic, it's probably either accidental or derived from episodes that likely involved a lot of pain and problems.  There I stood, surrounded by a replica ancient village, men with swords, some few as monsters and less-savory characters, and a damsel sought protection from a possible danger.  

Yeah, I was a bit of an idiot then.  But to be fair, it drove a nail straight into the middle of my brain that stayed there, letting me know this young lady saw me as someone who could provide for her some security.  While she was a bit amiss in that initial evaluation, thirty three years later, we still go to Renfest together.  And sometimes even get to bring our kids.

What the hell has this got to do with my foot?  Well, after the cancellation of the 2020 Renfest run, and a long series of days where I found myself looking at the health problems of others and trying to make sure they were able to receive proper care, I needed a happy place for my brain to go when the weight got too heavy.  I never realized the advantage of soldiering on together with almost a hundred people together in a building, all of us affecting in some way the ability for sick people to be able to get well.  I know it would have been especially helpful this past year as we deployed a massive new piece of software which affected 100% of what I do every day.  The knowledge you can obtain through sheer osmosis, overhearing conversations, tips, questions and answers of others aided so much in my initial accumulation of knowledge.  But I had to do it the other way with this rollout.  

As fall approached and my foot was ... beginning to hurt, I grew concerned that I would not be able to "get my money's worth" out of those season passes.  So I pushed through.  Due to a number of reasons, including weather, we chose to forgo opening weekend, and the second Saturday the event was open this year, we attended.  I had not realized the amount of physical deterioration I'd undergone sitting behind a desk and walking only up and down stairs and around a single parking lot, daily, but the 3/4 mile walk from where we finally parked the car to the main gate to get our season pass medallions (another selling point I'd have invested in years before, had I known), it was concerning.  

Then we got through the gates, I made it all of about twenty feet inside and had to stop.  The clear blue sky over the green trees and grass, the smells, the sounds, and knowing it was all still there, I stood and nearly burst into tears.  The relief was nearly overwhelming. 

And I made I think six trips out to the festival this year, which not only more than made those medallions worthwhile, they also helped me to firmly resolve to get in something other than out-of-shape.  Walking a few miles a day should definitely be something I'm capable of, and I will get to that point.

That resolve was what led me to see the urgent care folks a few weeks after the Renaissance Festival ended.  I will admit postponing a bit because my wife and I had followed through with a mini-vacation for us to return to the North Shore of Minnesota on Lake Superior, where we honeymooned in 1990.  Our intent had been to possibly do it in 2015, but economics was not on our side.  In 2020, I had thought to surprise her, but that went the way of COVID.  She had secured a less elaborate but no less charming place to stay, and so we had anniversary plans, too.

It was that trip that put her heart into what is rather dismissively termed "A-Fib" - having nothing to do with deception, it's pretty much your heart telling you it needs a good whack.  And hers was set right within 18 hours of her seeking professional help.  My foot continued to be sheer, utter agony by this point, and it hurt when water dropped on it in the shower.

It was at that point that I realized the pain in my foot was remarkably, and disturbingly similar to the pain I'd experienced in my left shin/calf area some 13 years prior.  Back in 2008, when I was hospitalized, learned I was a diabetic, and learned I had a life-threatening infection.  That is, I learned I had an infection, it wasn't until years later that my wife let slip that amputation of that leg was an option in the early days of resolving the issue.  Today, I'm left with a scar about the size of a golf ball, about a half-inch deep.  And I'm thankful.

This most recent event was compounded by the trauma I lay at the foot of the young surgeon who did a good job of extracting the infection.  It was her followup visit in the hospital where she sought to examine her handiwork which was where I determined to part ways with her, as it was obvious to me that the young lady had not realized that she was preceded by an anesthesiologist only in the operating room.  Poking and prodding into surgery sites without allowing nurses to sedate or provide pain medication to the patient beforehand is definitely not the way to go.

Back to the point, here - on Friday, yesterday, when my usual Wednesday/Friday Nurse took a good look into the depths of my foot, she noted the tendon was no longer easily visible, and the bone was nearly hidden.  Gulp.  Yes.  I have an open wound on my foot which allows anyone I let look into it to see all the way down.  

And it's getting better.  That is, smaller.  As she said yesterday, the sides are no longer vertical, they are closing in at the bottom and building out.  The bone, which was clearly visible early on, is now covered with a film of tissue which is continuing to grow.

So in the future, if the medical issue does not respond after the initial application of over-the-counter medication or home remedies of any kind, seek professional help.  You ain't smart enough to fix it if the over-the-counter initial stuff doesn't work.  

Hopefully I'll remember that in the future.