So I’ve been diagnosed with a couple of things this year I didn’t even know were things, such as fructose intolerance and tarsal tunnel syndrome.

Fructose intolerance is like lactose intolerance only it’s a different sugar your body doesn’t process correctly. On the good side, it means I can now eat ice cream again provided I make sure to buy the stuff that only has milk, cream, sugar, and eggs in it. But it means I’m to avoid anything high in fructose, which includes a few foods I like, such as orange juice, watermelons, and peas. And basically anything that says “corn syrup” on the label.

Testing for fructose intolerance means drinking a solution of fructose and water, then blowing into a test tube every 30 minutes for 3 hours. The amount of trace gases in your exhalations let the lab know whether or not you are digesting the fructose. I also got to do that for sucrose but that came back normal.

But then comes the tarsal tunnel diagnosis. I have been having lots of pain and numbness in my feet and have seen a couple other podiatrists, but the one I’m seeing now seems much more on the ball. She did some evaluation in our initial consult, then ordered things like x-rays and nerve conduction studies, and then told me I’d need surgery.

We did the right foot last Friday and will do the left one later in the summer. According to her, usually there’s just a little band she has to snip to release the nerve, but in my foot, there were adhesions “all the way up.” I take that to mean all the way to the ankle joint. She said the adhesions were very fibrous and thick and sounded like celery when she cut through them.

Here’s a couple of things about this doctor: when she showed up before surgery to speak to me, she was wearing a t-shirt that said, “In my defense, it was a full moon and I was left unsupervised.” Also, she apparently draws cartoons on her patients. Surgeons generally make a mark on whatever body part they’re going to operate on, but she goes a bit farther. After she’d drawn on my foot, I asked her if she’d signed it and she said yes. You can see the remains of the cartoon in this photo.

Incision looking good; the surgeon said she was happy to see it “wrinkly.” I assume she meant it wasn’t swollen. Two weeks to go, though, before I can put any weight on it.