The Ch-Word

I went in, convinced that I had diabetes.

My dad was diabetic: it was one of the few things that I knew about his health. In his final years, I learned that he had prostate cancer, but it was treatable.

But that's not what killed him.

He told my sisters and I that he had been hospitalized for some surgery on his heart. I've seen the scar down his chest. Apparently, he had a stint put in. It was his heart, in the end, that failed him, and he died at the age of 62.

I'll be that age in three years.

When I visited my doctor's office, in late June, I complained about a wound on the ball of my right foot that wasn't healing. A blister had broken through the tough flesh and made a berry-like growth underfoot. That growth was sensitive and was constantly bleeding.

I learned, through my physician, that coating the wound in antibiotic ointment and keeping it covered with a bandage was the worst thing for healing it. I was to give it air and keep it uncovered. And within a week, I saw a marked improvement.

To this day, I still have a scab and a callus-like buildup over the wound, but it's stopped bleeding and oozing.

I just have to be careful when I go kayaking.

At the end of the appointment, I was given orders for bloodwork. The doctor was concerned that the wound was taking so long to heal, despite my interference with the healing. She feared that I might be diabetic.

I went straight from the appointment to a nearby clinic, and within a half hour, I headed home, short a few vials of blood.

Last Friday, I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor. I was convinced that the news would be that I was diabetic. What would I do with this news? I mean, I felt fine.

Apart from my lungs, of course. They're still messed up.

While I waited in the examining room for the doctor to arrive, an assistant took my blood pressure. While the readings were normal, they were slightly elevated for me. I usually fall around 125 over 70.

The doctor started by saying that the news was "very bad." My heart sunk.

"Diabetes?" I asked.

She turned to the computer screen that showed my chart. "No, your blood-sugar levels are normal. But your cholesterol..."

I laughed. I literally laughed.

"What's so funny?" the doctor asked.

"When was the last time I had a blood test?"

She consulted my chart. "It's been more than five years."

"Exactly," I said. "I've been avoiding blood tests because I know my cholesterol is high. The last time I had blood work performed was when I had a different doctor."

When I first started going to this medical centre, I had a great doctor. She understood me. I don't make appointments unless I feel something is wrong with me, so when I went in to see her, she took my concerns seriously. When my left foot gave me problems, she investigated the possibilities and she even called me, on a Saturday afternoon, when she came up with what she thought was going on with my foot.

She was ultimately wrong in her diagnosis but she was oh, so close.

When she saw the results of my first bloodwork, she noticed that my cholesterol was high. My previous doctor, from another clinic, had prescribed me different sorts of statins to control the cholesterol. But I stopped taking the meds because

• the first drugs made my joints ache,
• the second set of meds made me feel run down, and
• the third prescription had me waking up every morning, feeling hung over and dehydrated.

I hated the side effects so I gave up taking meds, focused on my diet, and made sure I was getting enough exercise.

I told my new doctor this, and told her that I didn't want to take meds. She wasn't thrilled with this choice but she respected my decision.

When she moved to Toronto, I was heartbroken, but the medical centre quickly set me up with a new doctor. She's great too, but I didn't want to have the spiel about my bloodwork, so I always ignored the requisitions she wrote up for me.

I had gone many years without a blood test. My latest foot issue changed that. We were trying to rule out diabetes.

When I raised my concerns with my newest doctor, she still tried to convince me to go on meds. She said that the options for treating cholesterol have changed and there were drugs that had very few side effects. She put in an electronic prescription to my local pharmacy.

I haven't picked up the order and I don't really plan to. If the pharmacy calls, I'll tell them to cancel the order.

Granted, ever since my lungs have slowed me down, I haven't exercised as much as I used to. I've been on my bike only a few times. Also, because of the wound on my foot, I haven't gone for many walks and I've stopped marching in place while I'm on a video meeting for work.

I've gone kayaking almost every weekend, since late May, but that's not enough.

I've also indulged in snacks, though I gave up alcohol for the month of July.

Starting today, I'm going to get back into a healthier regime. I'm going to get back on my bike. Now that my foot is almost completely healed, I'm going to start walking again.

I'm going to work on my core, too.

DW has eliminated most snacks from the house, and I'll behave myself.

My goal, for decades, has been to live a healthier life than my dad lived. I'd like to surpass the age of 62.

Hell, I'm not planning to retire until I'm 63. I'd like to enjoy some time after then.

Productive Off My Feet

My feet just can't catch a break.

A few months ago, after seeing countless ads on my Instagram feeds and in the margins of my Yahoo mail account, I decided to buy a pair of Vessi shoes. I have several pairs of walking shoes but none that I can wear in the rain without soaking my feet, and I was able to apply a discount code, so I thought I'd roll the dice and try them out.

It's the first time that I've ever bought footwear online.

Ten days later, the shoes arrived on my doorstep and I was excited to try them on. They fit more snugly than a regular pair of shoes but that is by design. They're 100-percent waterproof so you don't want any gaps that can let water in.

I wore them around the house for a couple of days before taking them outdoors, and the only issue that I noticed was that if I sat with my feet up for any length of time, my feet would become numb: especially, my left foot.

That foot has hardware in it, from my reconstructive surgery, and so the top of it bulges just a bit more than my right foot. All of my shoes are more snug on that foot.

That's the price of a pain-free foot that I wouldn't trade for the world.

I started wearing my Vessis outdoors, especially on rainy days. I'd step in puddles that I would avoid in any other shoe. One time, while photographing a memorial site, I accidentally stepped in some grass that was flooded and the water came right up to my ankles.

But my socks and feet stayed perfectly dry.

However, after a weekend in Toronto, where DW and I walked everywhere—and me in my Vessis—I noticed a small blood blister had formed on the ball of my right foot. It didn't hurt so I ignored it, confident that it would heal in a few days.

I wore my other shoes, most of the time, though I would put my Vessis on if it was raining and I was only going a short distance. (Though, I wore them for the photo walk that I lead, in June).

The blister, which started deep under my skin, was making its way to the surface, and that's when the trouble started. I began to play with it while watching TV.

One evening, I absentmindedly started picking at it, while watching TV, and suddenly, it began to bleed. A lot. Without noticing, I had created a small puddle on the hardwood floor of our bedroom (thankfully, my feet were dangling off the bed).

I cleaned the wound (and the floor), applied some antibiotic ointment, and covered the wound in a bandage before heading to bed.

In the morning, I noticed that some blood had soaked the bandage but thankfully, did not get on our sheets. I cleaned the wound, applied more ointment, and placed a fresh bandage over the wound, which seemed to form into a berry-like bubble.

Walking on it was a problem, as I always seemed to burst that bubble. Over six or seven weeks, I had gone through dozens of bandages (which was actually for the best, as many of those bandages were at least a decade old). I used them all up before opening one of our first-aid kits that is packed with several boxes of newer bandages of various sizes and uses: waterproof, flexible, and breathable.

When it seemed like my foot wasn't getting any better and continually bled, I made an appointment to see my doctor. She inspected the wound and, to my relief, told me there was no infection. I was, however, treating it in the worst way by applying the antibiotic ointment and keeping it constantly covered.

It needs to air out, she told me. Keep it bare for a couple of days, at least until it dried out. She applied some nitrogen to it, which made it scab up, and wrote me an order to have some blood work, with which she would follow up in a couple of weeks.

The blood work was to determine whether I was diabetic or not. The wound shouldn't have been taking this long to heal, and because my father was diabetic, I was at risk.

I meet with her to discuss the results at the start of August.

So, for more than a week, I've tried to stay off this foot as much as possible. I sit barefoot while I'm working at my home-office desk and whenever I watch TV. I only apply a bandage when I have to go out and when I do, I wear my spongiest shoes and tread lightly.

It's getting better.

This past weekend, I bowed out of kayaking with DW and my friends, and I spent most of my time barefoot and sitting at a desk, editing video and producing content for my YouTube channel. Not only did I upload one video to my channel, which I'll share tomorrow, but I also produced a second video that will be available on my channel on August 3.

And I've begun work on yet another video. Plus, I wrote today's, tomorrow's, and Wednesday's blog posts.

Who knew that a pair of shoes could lead to me being so productive?

I still love my Vessis. They are comfortable (even though they produced a blister, I wasn't in pain while wearing them) and they keep my feet perfectly dry in the wettest of conditions.

But for now, I'm sticking to my other shoes.

Stay tuned for more news on my foot...