Fred Phelps Dies...I Catch a Cold.

That effing bastard.

I just got back from dominating--DOMINATING!!--my local CVS. Walked in like a boss, made the place mine.

Well, yeah, I leaned on my shopping cart a few times and limped, but I did all this without crutches.

Forgot to mention that, did I? Sorry. Been off my feet for most of the last 29 days. I've only been able to put weight on them without howling for a little over a week.

My vascular doc says that the root cause is poor circulation in my legs; the valves in the big vein aren't closing properly, so blood tends to pool at the bottom end of me, especially in my left leg and foot. Most of the time, it just makes walking a hassle. But every few months one foot or the other will start hurting in one area--the ball, the top, whatever. Within days it spreads across and then up and it's the worst pain I've ever had. Nothing touches it. If that foot's on the floor, I can't pick it up; if it's off the floor, I can't put it down.

Almost inevitably, a day or two after one foot starts this crap, the other one joins in.

It's been one hell of a month. My left one started aching Feb. 19th (Wed.); the right one joined in the following Saturday. I stayed in bed as long as I could. Lost so much strength in both legs that I had to use a walker. That was an entirely new dimension of pain, since I still had doctor's appointments to go to. Getting from my room to my nephew's car took 15 long, long minutes. Getting back in took 40.

After the second week, I started being able to use crutches. "B.C." powders started helping with the worst of the pain. I've never had this stuff last so long, a month. It's usually a week, several days on crutches and a few weeks building my leg muscles back up.

The vascular doc says I'm going to need air boots and compression stockings. He's already done treatments on each leg to block off some under-performing veins, but the others need all the help they can get.

After all the crutching around these last few weeks, tonight's shopping run was the first time I've gone without them or that walker. So, like I said, I dominated that store.