Not Technically

It's not technically Thanksgiving yet. That doesn't happen until tomorrow, but I doubt I'll get to spend much time near my computer, at least not until we all get back from Thanksgiving with the extended family. That ought to be fun. I expect several of them to be nearly psychotic with outrage that Obama won the election; the others won't wear their hearing aids and it'll be a nonstop festival of well-intentioned but quite loud shouting.

Meantime, I decay. Something has gone horribly wrong with my left leg and it's swelled up to twice or three times its normal size. I can barely bend it at the knee, and sometimes my skin hurts because it doesn't like being stretched like sausage casing. The swelling goes down at night a bit, but not much. It sucks. It's hard to get in the car. It's hard to put on socks and shoes. Sometimes I wear a compression stocking on my lower leg, but it hurts so much by the end of the day that I want to scream.

I went to the doctor to have an ultrasound performed on it. The "ultrasound guy" never tells you anything. Ask him what time it is and he refers you to the "ordering physician", which makes me think of Chinese take-out. But obviously he found something of interest. He spent a few minutes at most on my calf, behind my knee and at a spot a few inches above my knee. The rest of the hour-long ultrasound ordeal was dedicated to minutely examining a spot in my far upper thigh. I don't want to give too many gory details, but let's say that by the time it was over with, I had so much gel in my underpants I didn't so much walk as slither. My testicles haven't been that slippery since... well, ever, really.

Now I wait to see what's wrong with me. It isn't a congestive heart failure thing, because that would involve both legs. It's a blockage or a blood clot or something. They'll probably say "Eh, it's just the new you; adapt or die, bub." So I can look forward to lugging this immense 3X left leg around, right?

I started taking Vitamin B-6 and dandelion root because they're alleged to be mild diuretics, and anything that wrung a little water out of my leg must be good. But I can't report that they've made much difference at all. Maybe I'm using them incorrectly. Maybe I'm supposed to smoke them or something. Nothing does much good. Elevating my leg improves it a little bit, but not very much. I think I'm becoming depressed about the whole thing.

But this is Thanksgiving, damn it! We're supposed to be talking about things we're thankful for, not stuff what depresses us. So what am I thankful for? The fact that I'm still alive, I guess.

Whee!