Bigfoot Lives!

Memory fails me on this, but I believe it was the late 60s, early 70s when the Bigfoot frenzy was at its peak. Every "documentary" of the Amazon-sized man-ape creature ever made found its way into our living room. We were fascinated with out-of-the ordinary things like the Canadian version of the abominable snowman (Sasquatch) and UFOs. A couple of years ago, we here in Georgia had our own version of a Bigfoot Hoax . Most people don't believe that such a creature ever existed, but everyone needs a hobby, and of someone wants to spend time and resources investigating the possibilities, then it's fine by me.

I am here today to testify, however, that Bigfoot does indeed exist. And it is sitting in my office chair typing this blog. This past Christmas Eve, in my haste to make it to the candlelight communion service at my church, I took a nasty tumble off of my porch. Somehow, in all my gracefulness, I turned my ankle on the top step and tumbled down onto the cement driveway, banging my knee and my elbow, and twisting my shoulder into some contorted position that would qualify me for the Circ de Soleil. Banged my head on the concrete too, but thankfully the cement wasn't broken. Happily, the plate of peanut-butter-pretzel-peanut candy I was carrying landed intact, still covered with the Almighty Kling Wrap, and was salvaged. For that candy to have been lost would have been worse than my wounds! As I lay on the driveway, catching my breath, mentally assessing my injuries, I realized the merits of the "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials and the Life-Alert necklaces worn around the neck. My cell phone was in the car, parked quite a few paces from me. Once I determined that I wasn't hemorrhaging and that I could wiggle all my appendages, I crawled to my car, somehow pulled myself into the driver's seat, contorted myself to reach my purse in the back floorboard, retrieved my cell phone and called Whitney, who was inside the house, but hadn't heard my scream as I fell, and didn't notice the earth shake as I hit the ground. Cement. She rushed out to assist me, then I had her drive me over to my mom's house, where the family would be gathering after the communion service. Upon inspecting my wounds, I found my elbow was slightly denuded, and my knee had a nasty gash, but there were no obvious bony deformities. My aunt Joyce, who had already arrived, gave me some chewable medication derived from a plant called "leopard bone" that is supposed to prevent bruising and swelling. I put ice on the knee, and gave passing acknowledgement to a small, slightly reddened area at the base of my calf, right above the ankle joint. It felt a little sore, but no obvious swelling or bruising. My knee seemed to be the most painful injury, and even now, some nine weeks later, the open wound hasn't entirely healed. I was amazed that the "leopard bone" seemed to have indeed kept me from bruising. I bruise quite easily, and normally would have awakened the next day with the entire right side of my body a lovely palette of purple. I never saw the first bruise.

Strangely enough, about three weeks after the fall, the tender area at the distal end of my calf started hurting pretty badly, and a huge knot appeared. I showed it to my PCP, and in reading my medical record, noted that she described it as "a knot the size of an egg". Yep, that's about how big it was. And it looked very strange. Didn't really hurt that much, it just wouldn't go away. One day I stopped by the ortho office where I used to work, and Dr. M. examined me and explained that it was a hematoma, but the location of it doesn't allow for normal absorption. There's not much tissue in that part of the leg, so the hematoma has nowhere to go. I could expect it to get bigger and smaller, and bigger again before it went away. He could try to aspirate it (ouch!) and drain some of the offending fluid, or I could just let it absorb on its own, but it might take several months. I opted for the latter, since it wasn't painful. A bit of difficulty with getting my big fat foot into most of my shoes, but hardly worth a needle probing around in my "egg".

It seems my hematoma has decided to start the absorption process with a vengeance. The knot has decreased in size by about 50% over the past several days. All of the content has drifted down into my foot. I Am Bigfoot. It is very uncomfortable, even at rest, and quite painful to flex and extend the foot. And it's not very pretty either. No amount of pedicure or nail polish can disguise the fact that my foot looks like the offspring of the Michelin Tire Man. Hope I don't need to go anywhere soon that requires a decent shoe. I'm stuck with my Skecher croc-like thingies. Good thing my normal work attire only involves warm socks and fuzzy slippers.

BIGFOOT LIVES!!