It’s a little after four in the afternoon EDT here in Florida. I just returned from my appointment with Dr. Adcock, in Maitland. There are so many doctors concentrated there and in Winter Park and Lake Mary-all sort of on the toney side of the suburbia spectrum. The doctors can sniff out the money. I’m just kidding, all my Orlando-area docs. I love you all. I really do. I sort of won the Medical Professional Lottery but, I know scholarships didn’t cover everything; you have student loan debt. At least, I hope one or two of you got scholarships-I can guess which ones but, I ain’t saying.

Whoa, that was a weird appointment. The techs lathered my legs in so much of what felt like warm KY Jelly, I felt as though I was going to be wearing two gigantic condoms. I loathe those things. That’s why I prefer committed relationships.

I have pitted edema. It’s in my lower legs. Simplistically put, its swelling. I have fluid in the ankle area. It’s way worse in my left leg and the fluid settles in the bottom of my left foot. It kind of feels like my left leg is very slightly longer than my right one. I know it’s fluid because when I’ve been asleep in bed for awhile and awake to tinkle, that uneven sensation is gone. The sensation became more pronounced when I got my new knee. I know it’s not the new knee because 1) I completely trust my orthopedic 2) I saw the x-ray of my knees during my last appointment with him a month ago. The knees were perfectly aligned. I love my new knee. It brings my average age down to about 35. It’s a demonstration of the mean being very sensitive to extremes. Oops, sorry for speaking statistics. My knee is the happiest part of my body except for my tastebuds when I have chocolate or coffee or red wine or cheese or shrimp or lobster or fish or Thai, Indian, Greek or Chinese or Pakistani food. Basically, my tastebuds are anthropologists but, I digress.

So, I have this edema issue, which is annoying because it makes me feel old, which I refuse to be. My brain thinks I’m 30, most of my body thinks I’m about 42 and my spirit, ha, IS a juvenile delinquent who has issues with authority figures, unless they are smart. But, let’s get real, “intelligent authority figures,” can be an oxymoron.

First the tech, Charley (not his real name), motioned me to get on the exam bed? table? thingee? after I got down to my knickers. He spread that nasty jelly on my right and then my left leg and looked at my veins through an ultrasound contraption. He was really cool and explained that veins are spongelike and arteries are firm. It was a brilliantly simple way to explain it. I never really understood how fluid could seep out of veins. I do now.

When he finished taking photos of different parts of my leg veins he said, “Your new knee looks great. He did a great job and your scar looks great.” I said, “Yeah, my orthopedic is kind of a genius.” I left out, “annoyingly adorable.” Charley probably wouldn’t care about that part. Anyway, I sort of like my scar. I know, I’m weird.

Then, Elizabeth (not her real name), the second tech came in for the artery portion of the show. This is where it got weird but, I did get to don the stunning paper shorts. I relocated to another exam room across the hall and got to recline on a new bed-she called it a bed. Damn, I requested a thirty-year-old Robert Plant. He was out of stock. Musta been raided by those toilet paper and Lysol wipes hoarders.

Elizabeth informed me that this exam could become very uncomfortable. She was to put four blood pressure cuffs on my right leg and then my left. They would become tight and if they became too tight she could end the test. I’m all in favor of medical personnel having all the necessary information so, I decided that I wasn’t going to let that happen. After the first round of blood pressure measuring I was going to walk back and forth in the hallway for five minutes and then quickly get back on the bed so she could measure the blood pressure in my ankles. She said that that was the most important part-ankle blood pressure.

She put the cuffs on my right leg-ankle, calf, lower thigh and upper thigh and then got to work with the ultrasound machine. Whoa! There are demons in my arteries and they don’t sound happy! They became angrier the higher up my leg she went. In between the points of measurement on my leg I heard thunderstorms and cracked and scratchy vinyl LP’s.

I expected the upper thigh to hurt like hell-especially hearing how pissed those demons were-but, it wasn’t that bad. I thought it was going to be intolerable on the left upper thigh given that the edema is worse in that leg. It wasn’t. I told the tech that when she got to that part I just laid there and visualized locking my dumpy apartment up for the last time and dancing all the way to my brand new blue VW Tiguan that was parked on the curb. Hey, visualization got me my new lagoon blue (technical VW name) 2005 diesel Beetle-manual transmission.

Then I walked the hallway for five minutes while Elizabeth timed and coached me. Heaviness? No. Stiffness? No, again. Tingling or tenderness? Negatory. Pain? Nada. She measured my ankle blood pressure and I had to give up those awesome shorts. Dern. In total, I was there two hours.

On the way to the doctor the sky threatened to dump barrels of rain. It was a beautiful Florida sky. I know yesterday I complained about the heat here but, one up side is that we have some of the most spectacular clouds anywhere.

It’s all part of my love-hate relationship with my home state. I love the thunder and lightning we get. I actually missed our storms when I lived in Oregon.

I took some pictures on my drives to and from Dr. Adcock’s office.

Once I got home I checked the mail. This is my favorite kind of mail box.

Yesterday when I left for work I left one of the final vestiges of Crazy Lady, my former roommate, on the curb to get taken away with the trash. I wrote about her in a blog in March in which I described the state of my life prior to getting my knee fixed. This patio chair was stuck, wedged tightly under the window sill outside. I finally was able to yank it loose. It was fully in tact when I left for work at 8:40 am. When I got home I discovered someone got angry at it. Could have been my arterial demons??? Hmm. This is what I found and I busted out laughing because it’s a metaphor for the relationship I had with Crazy Lady. Hint: she’s the chair.

When I left for the doctor’s office I found that our garbage collectors were actually useful and took Crazy Lady’s chair. They did leave this little chair body part. It’s ok. I can use my new knee when I stomp the snot out of it periodically.

In another metaphor for a failed relationship in my life, my toaster died. It was a parting gift from my ex-husband, Brian, when he moved from Altamonte Springs to Port Charlotte in 2012 to take care of his elderly parents.

Y’all have a good night☕️☕️☕️🍷