What Is It With My Legs?

December 2008
I sprained my right ankle badly. I was basically bed-ridden and on crutches for two weeks. Crutches after that along with physical therapy. It took a while but I was back to normal by February-March.

Spring 2009
My left calf had some cramps. Nothing bad, but I would notice that it felt tight when I walked sometimes--especially if I trotted or jogged anywhere. But, of course, I dismissed it.

Last Wednesday, I was getting ready to walk the dog and trotted through the front hall to get my sneakers. My left calf "popped." I didn't fall on the floor, thank goodness, but oh MAN it hurt. I couldn't walk very well. I limped the rest of the week. By Sunday, my ankle was swollen--but it didn't hurt. Weird. But my leg still hurt.

By Monday it was feeling better and on Tuesday it was much better. Even the swelling was gone. But then...the cub scouts had a mini-hike that afternoon. I climbed a fence fine. Then we had to climb down and back up a little creekbed. Going up, I could feel the leg muscle pull again. I limped around the rest of the hike. Coming home, I had to climb the fence again. This time I didn't do as good of a job and I landed on both feet on the other side. OUCH! Back to square one.

I limped around all day on Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday night, I was worried. It wasn't getting better and my ankle was swelling again. I was worried about a blood clot. After doing all I had to do on Thursday, including a twilight camp meeting, I decided to go to urgent care. My dear, sweet husband went with me at 9:00 at night.

We waited about an hour and a half. Once I finally got in, the doctor was great. He was efficient and thorough. He even apologized for our long wait and waived the copay. COOL! But he was worried too. He said I didn't have all the symptoms of deep vein thrombosis, but I had enough that it warranted an immediate trip to the ER for an ultrasound.

At 11:00 at night, we traipsed over to Plano Presby. Thank goodness they were having a light evening. I had an doppler sonogram on my leg and they x-rayed my ankle. Both tests were negative. Richard enjoyed watching all the cool stuff on the sonogram--which I couldn't see. So not fair.

I was diagnosed with either a muscle strain or something called a Baker cyst. I'm leaning toward the cyst because the symptoms are almost exactly what it looks like.

We got home at about 1:30-2:00. I took a prescribed vicodin and was asleep for the night by 3:00. I went to school today. I tried to stay off the leg as much as possible--using my crutches from last year even--but by the time school was out, my ankle and lower leg were HUGE! I came home, put myself to bed with my leg up and haven't moved from here since. My hope is that I can keep the leg up over the weekend and hopefully have it better by next week. No matter what, I'll still probably follow up with an orthopedist next week.

It is so frustrating to be incapacitated. Today was the last day of school. I have hardly seen my boys since I came home. (Of course Chris is out at a "school's out" party, but still.) Richard is at his school trying to finish up the last things and he's just as exhausted as I am. I had plans for tonight that I had to cancel, plans for tomorrow that I'll probably have to cancel. There are things to start doing with the start of summer and here I sit. Ugh.

Now I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is but a small thing. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it any less annoying. So I will grudgingly lie here and rest my leg. I will let people help me and I will assign others the jobs that need to be done. And I will try not to feel guilty.

And...I'll try to come up with a better story than "hiking with the cub scouts."