Azoturia

 

I am tying up a lot of loose ends today, with the hope/plan/belief that I will after today.... be back on track for a "normal" week next week.  

• All the letters of recommendation I needed to complete at the moment ARE finished. 
• 90% of the big rodent uses in the classrooms are finished (I have one more bout on Monday, but then will be completely done helping in that regard for quite a while).  
• I also have all of my LMSes (the gizmo-ey electronic classrooms that I use for storage) all set up so students can access things for next week, 
• And I have all the NEXT SET OF EXAMS written and sent to the secretary for printing and sorting.... even though NEXT WEEK is the timing where I have the FIRST EXAMS in most of my classes.  
• Additionally, I have stayed on top of the needed research work with my rodents, my flies, and my worms.

Yesterday's Retiree's Cigar Group.... was not all I had hoped for.  Surprisingly most of the fellows HAD stayed far later than usual.... which WAS wonderful.... but, for some reason I am still not sure about, there were a significant BUNCH of additional folks (that are not regulars) who were there too.  That is of course, ok too.  But, there were so many that they had out many folding chairs too to accommodate folks, as all the comfy chairs were all taken.  It was jam-packed at the place.  So, as is typical when the group size gets larger, I tend to get far quieter.  But also, one of the never before seen before fellows who showed up was a rather "extremely boisterous" fellow who did most if not all the "talking" and most of the talking he did was in the form of a continual stream of very overly bawdy jokes.  This fellow occupied so  much of the air space, that pretty much he was the only one talking 90+%  of the time.  Still, even though the jokes were not really of a type I prefer to listen to..... it was still nice being able to enjoy a cigar and to see (but not hear much from) my friends.  

"Azoturia" is an "old-timey" phrase that was, I believe mostly used in the 1800s to describe a condition of horses that causes stiffness and pain in the muscles of all four legs simultaneously but the pain is more noticable and focused in the hindquarters and back.  Way back in the day when I was an undergraduate contemplating attempting to pursue Veterinary Medicine as a possible career, I remember hearing an older gentlemen use this term.  This fellow was a person I was working with while volunteering at a horse stable to obtain some large animal experiences.  I had also seen/read this term somewhere before that in some cowboy-based Western novel I had read in junior high or high school.  Words tend to stick with me, and this is especially so for interesting sounding words, so I always remembered the word after seeing it in that novel.  When I heard the older gentleman say the word while at the stable, I surprised the heck out of him by defining the word.  He laughed and then said that most folks just say the horse is "tying up" instead of the old, formal word.  

In some ways, I have felt I have been "tying up" or having Azoturia during the last several weeks dealing with my own leg pain while running.  I have ran each day this week, however, so I am pleased that I am progressing back to a more normal state.  I still do not fully understand why this happened.  I do think that the damn plantar wart played a significant role in it, though.  As I mentioned several days ago, I developed a plantar wart well over a year ago dead center on the heel of my right foot.  What I did not tell you, was that:

• Unlike the one I had back in graduate school for a brief time, this one.... because of its location, was painful as hell and annoying because I would put pressure on it with every step.
• When it first developed, I dutifully went to a podiatrist, hoping he would freeze the damn thing and it would fall off.  BUT NO, he did not "believe" in that sort of thing, and instead decided to use some "mystical fluid" of his that he very genially and lightly dipped the end of a Q-Tip (cotton swab) into, and then ever so lightly touched the tip of the damn plantar wart with a miniscule amount of that fluid.  He then put a bandaid on my foot and sent me on my way with a follow-up appointment in what amounted to three weeks.  
• In my graduate school version of this many decades ago, the medical support at student services instructed me to use salicyclic acid on the thing.... and it fell out after a few weeks of daily application (it fell out while I was in Nova Scotia, but that is a different story for another time).
• I was skeptical of the treatment I received for my heal, but I tried to reason through in my mind that this fellow was a "medical professional" and knew what he was doing.
• But.... seriously.... not a damn thing changed.  In the subsequent appointment, he did the same damn thing with his little Q-Tip, and then at a third appointment he did the same damn thing again..... and NOTHING had changed.  I questioned him about this, and again asked if he would freeze it (common practice) and he said no, and then mentioned this could take "several months or more" to treat.  
• I grew extremely tired of his antics, which I now believe were simply to string me along so he could repeatedly charge my insurance for a visit.  I did not go back to him after the no progress third visit.  
• So, I decided to take measures into my own hands at this point.  
• BUT, in these many weeks, running was a bit "uncomfortable" but WALKING was actually rather painful almost every step because of the location of this damn wart.  
• So.... I believe that while I treated myself with salicyclic acid patches (in much the same way I did in graduate school) and eventually got rid of the damn plantar wart.... during the many weeks of it being painful..... I think I started to adopt a change in gait for my affected leg while running and while walking that had me walking more with pressure on the paddle of my foot (effectively decreasing the pressure on my heel) which then resulted in my shortening of various tendons of the foot and ankle region.... causing the development of the plantar fasciitis I have now been dealing with using the foot gizmo you saw in an earlier post.   

Overall, my legs are improving and I hope to be trotting, if not galloping soon as I hoof around the track.... in a manner like I had normally been before the plantar fasciitis flared up..... very soon.  The damn wart has been gone for ~3 months, but the after effects on how I subconsciously adjusted my gait to make walking less painful now are what I am battling to bring back to homeostasis.  

I DID run today, and I CAN say it is getting better.  I just want it to be like it was before.  

Yesterday, I also found a long missing pipe that I had lost track of as well.  I must not have worn the particular sport coat I wore yesterday in quite a lot of time, for inside the left hip pocket, I found a beautiful pipe I had been missing.  Now, it really isn't a particularly "special" pipe as it was a basket pipe I picked up long ago... but to my own eye, I thought it was/is rather beautiful.  the color of the briar is distinctly brown.... but there is some aspect of it that has a bit of an olive green cast to it which I always liked and felt was rather unique.  And, it is a full-bent billiard shape, which I always have liked.  It was always a very COMFORTABLE to grip between my chompers as I smoked it, but also the pipe was beautiful to my eye.  I was happy I found it again.  

PipeTobacco