Today I had a procedure done on my leg. I've needed it done for years, but was misdirected when I first approached my doctor about it. I was sent to a neurologist for more than a year, then my cardiologist, and then finally to a vein specialist.
I used to be a much more active person than I am now. I used to walk 5 miles a day, three or four (or more) times a week. Towards the end of my stay in the shack-o-rama (a small mother-in-law unit behind a garage of a rental house my mother owns that I stayed in while back in school for a career in nursing), I never said anything to anyone, but I was going to a gym and had a personal trainer. But something had started going wrong with my feet and legs. First it felt like I had some of my sock waded up under my foot when I walked--but there was nothing there. Then my toes sort of stopped working and then my feet got numb. Enter neurologist.
He gave me test after test after test. Some of them (nerve conduction test anyone?) were painful. At one point, he thought I might have something called Poems Syndrome...which meant I also had a very short time to live. Yikes! More tests showed that was NOT the case. But I continued to get worse. I couldn't balance on one foot or walk a straight line (whether I had been drinking or NOT). I had brown spots concentrated at my feet and running all up my leg. Tiny broken blood vessels, my dermatologist told me. That, plus the neurologist exhausting his possibilities, led me to the cardiologist.
The cardiologist thought it had to do with my medication, that is was causing peripheral vascular disease. He lowered the one he said was to blame (amlodipine), thinking it would help. It didn't. He cut it out altogether. No help. In fact my feet and legs were getting worse than ever. Walking, especially after sitting in a chair or riding in a car, was difficult and painful. Driving with a shoe on was murder. I would be in bed at night and my toes would start screaming at me. I had a surgery on my knee that took far too long to heal than it should have. It was awful...and I just kept declining. I began having trouble just getting out of a chair. My middle of the night trips to the bathroom were sheer murder. It's led to my being more inactive than ever, and to my getting much, MUCH heavier. My cardiologist said the only thing he could do was to rip out my veins. YIKES! That sounded so barbaric.
I asked my primary doctor for a referral to a vascular specialist. I saw him a few months ago and, through ultra sound, he demonstrated how the valves in my great saphenous veins in both legs were not working. They backwashed when squeezed--which they are not supposed to do. He said the only treatment was cauterizing them and letting the other veins in my legs re-route the blood back to my heart and away from my feet. Essentially, it is the same treatment for varicose veins, but for me it is NOT cosmetic. I simply want to be able to walk and function as I did before.
Today was the procedure. It was done in the doctor's office. Of COURSE I wanted to get photos/video, but I didn't know how I'd do it. I snuck a few during the prep time, especially when the doctor and the assistant were out. But how was I going to get footage of anything else? I got NO shots during the actual cauterizing. (They actually found parallel veins--two great saphenous veins?--in my right leg and cauterized BOTH of them at the same time. Maybe that contributed to my problem?) We were talking during the whole procedure and they knew I was a nurse. I told them I was fascinated by what they were doing and I wished I could see. They looked for a mirror for me, but I suggested I could just hold my phone up and look through the camera setting. That sounded fine---so I DID watch through the camera...and snapped pictures and video at the same time. Ha!
I assembled a video. It's only a little graphic. You can take a look or avoid it. Here it is:
I have a follow up appointment on Monday. I hope this works. I can get my other leg done in a few months and get back to walking and exercising. The toes on my right foot still hurt as does my heel. I was told it would take a few weeks for the pain to subside. Fingers crossed it all goes well.
CHEERS!
For the the first update, click HERE.
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