It could also be a combination of spreading out the toes, exercizing them and ivig.

Hi Joe:

Guess we'll never really know but at least he is able to walk a bit, and sleep when he needs to sleep.

I remember 5 years ago, when he had to have the fentanyl patch, vicodin, and they tried neurontin and he got deathly sick.

Nothing worked.

So if it is indeed the combination of toe flexors, exercising of toes and IVIG, well, hurray!!!

He goes back to neuro next month. I can't wait to hear what she has to say when he brings up the toe flexors.

Indeed, I can't wait to see what the podiatrist says two weeks from now.

Just pray the ulcer doesn't re-occur. That's all we really care about right now.

He deserves a break.

Melody

Well, i know its just terrific if his out of pain and that rotten ulcer doesn't reappear, it would be great to read that you drove back and forth to Dunkin donuts one day most blokes love their cars, i say , aim for the sky, know body knows what tomorrow may bring. [ maybe not tomorrow, but i think you get me drift ], good stuff Mel.
all the best
Brian

Hi Brian:

Hope you're feeling chipper today. I love the way Aussies call guys Blokes!!!

That is so adorable.

Alan just left to go to his nighttime security guard shift.


He slept 7 hours today with those toe flexor thingees on. He woke up saying "I cannot believe I am not in any pain, these things are amazing". We took them off. He never mentioned pain again during the evening. So maybe this uncompressing of the toes has a residual effect?? Something might just be happening. That would be so lovely after 15 years.

And we would never drive to Dunkin. It's right around the corner.
Finding a parking space alone would drive us nuts.

But it's fun meeting him on Saturday and Sunday Mornings. I get all dressed up and he never knows what I'm going to be wearing. We say we are going out on a date.

Imagine doing this at 60 years old???

How fun

Melody

Mel 60 is not old, especially when your creeping up to it or have passed it crikey, i remember when i was young i thought 40 was old, trouble is, the time just goes so quick, far to quick, i think for everyone.
take care
Brian

Hi Melody:

I am so glad that things are looking up for Alan. The foot lesion healing is so wonderful and I hope that continues to be OK.

It is wonderful that you came up with both the cotton balls and the other thingies for between his toes, that is seeming to relieve pain there. This home made remedy reminds me of Sister Kenny's method - doctors at that time condemned her moist hot pack method and were putting kids in heavy braces which were the worst thing possible for polio and made them end up with usless limbs. Sister Kenny took off their heavy braces and put on wet hot packs. She believed in "treating the symptoms". The time did come when the doctors changed their minds and approved her methods, but it was a long and painful period for her till then. But the way, my late husband was believed to be her first patient in Minneapolis in the l940s when she came to this country. He had heavy braces on both legs. Had she come along sooner he might have been able to walk without crutches. As it was, she helped him immensely.

I believe that if something works, do it! I think you have hit on something with this toe separation thing and hope that it keeps on helping Alan. Wouldn't it be something if you turned out to be the Sister Kenny of toe pain?

Shirley H.

Shirley:

Boy did you bring back memories when you wrote about Sister Kenny. See, I have this kind of memory that I remember pieces of dialogue from anything I saw years and years ago (especially Star Trek), People would bet money on me and call me up and they made bets because they knew I could recall every word of every Star Trek episode made. I'll never forget my boss getting a phone call and saying "melody can't do Star Trek trivia now, she's busy". Now I can't remember walking into the kitchen and putting away the milk but give me the name of a movie and if I saw that movie, it all comes back to me.

As soon as you wrote Sister Kenny, I remembered Rosalind Russel, standing over the kid in the crib and putting hot compresses on the kid's legs and everybody is telling her she's wrong.

I remember the words Infantile Paralysis from that movie. And I remember her instructing someone to put the heat in a certain part of the person's leg. They all thought she was nuts, but now we know she was the genius of her day.

But the best thing of all, was, when I saw this film, I had to have been a young woman in my 20's before they invented VCR's, tapes, Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics, (way before Cable came out), I believe I saw this movie on Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9. They would play the same movie all day long, (all day long, really) for 7 days straight.

Anybody here remember, Million Dollar Movie??? They played Mighty Joe Young with Terry Moore so many times, my mother would come in and turn the TV off. But I did indeed see Sister Kenny, over and over.

Now here comes the funny part. For years and years after I saw that movie, I though Rosalind Russel played a nun. Because I was raised Catholic and went to all Catholic Parochial Schools, I was taught by nuns. By Sisters of Saint Joseph, by the Franciscans, by the Sisters of Mercy.

So there's Rosalind Russell on the screen and everyone is calling her Sister. And then she's having some sort of romance with a guy who wants to marry her and I'm saying to myself "what the heck kind of nun can get married??" I will never forget this if I live to be 100 years old.

Only years later, when I either was discussing this movie with someone, or maybe I went on the Internet, I don't know, but when I discovered that they call nurses in Australia, "sister", well, I burst out laughing.

I cannot tell you how this all came together in my mind. I said 'oh, she wasn't a nun". Now this makes perfect sense"

I mean really, how can they expect Americans to understand that they call nurses Sister in Australia. Over here we call nurse's NURSE, if we want to get their attention, not Sister!!!

And what about if you are a nun in Australia?? What do they call Nuns in Australia?? I'd love to know this.

Alan just came home from work and we met up at Dunkin.

I just checked his foot (5 days now) and area of ulcer looks exactly the same. There is a bit of dried skin around the area of the ulcer, like it's forming a callous or something. I don't care, I just but bacitracin on it. Maybe it's a piece of hardened bacitracin?? He's had so many meds on this ulcer, but the problem was inside the quarter size (let's refer to it as a boo-boo) for want of a better word.

Where he used to have this gaping hole, and it would bleed, well, it looks exactly as it did when he came home from the podiatrist last Wednesday.
So all is good. And he didn't even need the toe flexors to go to sleep just now. When he wakes up, and sits inside, he'll do the toe flexor for 30 minutes and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

What a nifty little item!!!

So thanks for the Sister Kenny comparison.
I'm going to try and find that movie on cable. I haven't seen it in over 40 years.

Melody

Hi Melody:

I too did not know, for many years, that Australian nurses were called "Sister" - so there is nothing unusual about your confusion. She was a "bush nurse" in Australia, meaning out in the country as we would say, I guess.

I am so happy that Alan is doing so well.

Your morning dates at Dunkin Donuts sound like such fun and very romantic of you two married people! When my late husband and I would go out to eat at restaurants, there was one man who asked if we were married, because he said we were having such a good time talking with each other. Yes, we always had something to talk about in 37 years of marriage.

Shirley H.

Shirley:

Wow, 37 years, that's terrific. I am so sorry he is not with you anymore.

Hope you're doing okay today. I just finished watching Perfect Stranger with Halle Berry. Now tell me something. How can a woman who is 40, look like Halle Berry? My god, she'll look like that when she's 60.

Absolutely amazing.

mel

HI Melody:

You're looking pretty good yourself in your user picture. I'd say 40s. It is a recent picture, isn't it? Your joyous spirit shines through.

Cheers...
Shirley H.