The Best Bad Development Yet

Okay... I've mentioned several times that I'm overweight. It's reach the point that the moment when I mention that I'm a diabetic, there's that brief look in other people's eyes that sarcastically says, "You don't say!" Reflexively, I immediately follow up with, "Type 1 since the age of seven, not Type 2 as it appears." I might even gesture at the thing medical science calls a human body.

The weight came from my inactivity due to Charcot foot... and a few other sources. That weight I gained when I was taking that high dose of gabapentin, for example. I lost most, but not all of the weight. The utterly ridiculous situation where I sneezed and separated a rib from my sternum resulted in me being prescribed steroids, and the steroids caused me to put on 30 pounds. Unlike the gabapentin, I don't know why the steroids did it. Heck, I don't even remember the name of the steroids! I just know that when I was done taking them, I was bigger. 

At this stage of my life, once the weight is there, it doesn't come off unless there's A LOT of work done. I brought this up with my doctor, complaining that in a country like Japan, I'd be hospitalized, given a much healthier diet, subjected to physical therapy, and they wouldn't stop until I was no longer in danger of dying from weight-related causes. "What's a 'weight-related' cause of death, Rob?" Lugging around what could be considered the total weight of a separate human being, my heart could wind up saying, "Nope. I'm done." And then I fall over, dead from cardiac arrest.

It is NOT beyond the realm of possibility.

This isn't to say that I didn't try to lose the weight. I bought an inexpensive stationary bicycle, figuring that a one-legged guy could make use of it and not have to worry about dodging traffic. 

HOWEVER, there was a brief period when I did an incredibly stupid thing. I got lazy and decided it was a waste of time taking the shoe off of my prosthetic, and then have to fuss with it later when/if I had to go out. So I left the shoe on... but I went barefoot on the other side. The result was a wildly uneven gait, and my left hip was getting tilted at an increasingly painful angle.

I didn't seek treatment for this one because, frankly, it was embarrassing. Besides, why bother? I didn't need a medical degree to know I'd done damage to my sciatic nerve. My symptoms were a spot-on match for sciatica. (A pinched sciatic nerve.) The pain was pretty intense, but I chose to ignore it as best I could. Of course, I started removing my shoe from my prosthetic to normalize my gait, but it would take about six months for the pain to go away completely.

EXCEPT...! The damage to my lower spine from my weight gain, arthritis, and degenerative disc disease constantly put me at risk to trigger the pain again. Lo and behold, after assembling the stationary bicycle, I tried to get on it... and it felt like someone shoved a sword through my lower back and down into my leg.

Oh, I was never going to do THAT again, even if it meant that $150 was sacrificed to the gods of consumer regret.

What annoyed me most was that if it had been a regular bicycle, I would have been able to get on it. Because instead of having to contort my body to get my leg over the stationary bike's rigid frame, I could have lowered the bicycle and simply stepped over it to get my foot on the other side.

My weight, my spine, my amputated foot, and Charcot foot have made getting around extremely difficult. It's my weight and spine that come together to become the real villains of the story. Once I stand up, I have two to five minutes before I have to lean on something or sit to remove the intense pressure on my lower spine. My least favorite activity is washing the dishes, not because it's an annoying chore, but because the pain starts climbing... and climbing... until I'm standing there, panting and praying for death.

Now let me add some legislative stupidity to my life. Where I'm living, blood testing supplies can't be delivered by pharmacies. Why? Because smaller pharmacies used to submit claims for glucose testing supplies without actually distributing said supplies. After discovering that they were being defrauded, the government passed laws that required a signature from the patient or someone the patient knew in order to hand over the supplies. Mind you, this was only if a doctor prescribed them. Out of pocket, 50 of the test strips I use will cost around $35, and I need 100 to last me 25 days. And that's if I don't have any failed tests. (Failed tests are when you don't have enough blood in the strip for whatever reason; you couldn't squeeze enough out of your finger or managed to smear the blood instead of getting it in the stick.) 

The signature requirement made me NUTS! I couldn't get to my pharmacy by foot, even though it was technically a five-minute walk... if I COULD walk! By pure chance, one of the pharmacy delivery guys was also a diabetic, so he was willing to drop sign for them and drop them off after work. Mind you, he had to wait until he was off from work. Otherwise, it would be akin to the scam that got us in this jam to start with.

Additionally, there were other little things that were frustrating me. Like if I started running low on food, I couldn't go out and get more on my own, and I'm too technologically inept to do online shopping for local markets to have them deliver. There's a mall nearby, and I've never visited it because I can't walk. I've wanted to get a COVID booster, but those are only distributed by pharmacies for some silly reason. Thus, I have been trapped at home beyond the restrictions of the global pandemic.

After discussing all of this with my PCP, he finally agreed that I would benefit from a motorized mobility device and began the paperwork for me to get one.

Medicare, being the extremely friendly and helpful organization that it is, made this SUPER easy! No, wait. Hang on. I got that wrong. What they actually did was tell the one-legged guy that he had to jump through a few administrative hoops first.

The one that presented the greatest challenge was getting a physical therapist's assessment of my living conditions to PROVE that I would benefit from such a device. There are no PT specialists that do home visits in my area. NONE. ZERO! 

Enter the third party company that helps broken people like me get the equipment they need. A technician was sent over to take measurements of my apartment, and he then called a physical therapist and did a walkthrough of my apartment using the camera on his phone. (Ain't technology grand?) In the end, they said that I SHOULD qualify for a motorized device, but they wouldn't promise because Medicare likes to invent more and more hoops for the disabled to jump through.

Initially, I was rejected. But that's because someone forgot to check a box somewhere on the submitted forms. The next letter I received was acceptance. Yes, "Hop-Along Round-Man" qualified for the device. This was in May. Thanks to global supply chain difficulties, I could expect to receive it in September or October.

The waiting game began. Would I be a good boy and wait quietly? Not on your life! I called a month later for an update. No news. Okay. Called after another month. Still no news. Getting antsy, I called around 10 August, which was another month later, and not only was there no news, there was no nothing! There'd been no order status updates since my last call, which surprised them. The said they'd look into it and call me back.

When next they contacted me, it was to ask if I could accept deliver on August 31. YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPY I COULD! 

With the assistance of a few people more able-bodied than me, some furniture was moved around my apartment to make room for my new wheels. And here they are!

I'm gonna go cruisin' for chicks with

this baby!

Now you're saying, "Rob. This is great! You'll finally have the freedom to do stuff!" And you're right. But I also feel like this is the final flag that's declaring me crippled, (as though the near-countless other reasons didn't do that).

~ sigh ~ I need my beautiful, scantily clad young woman. Where is she?

There she is... but annoyingly

overly clad.

NOTE: I don't know if anyone's noticed, since y'all never leave any comments, but I've essentially started making posts every other day. I think if I went with daily entries, I'd run out of things to talk about too quickly. This one is posted off schedule because of the date it occurred.