Pain in the...

...in my case that would be "foot".

I've had some discomfort in my left foot over the past few months, say since January or so.  Nothing that is debilitating, nothing that causes me to stay awake at night, just basically a pain in my foot.  The pain also comes and goes, is not even in intensity, isn't triggered by anything and isn't make better or worse by changing shoes.  So what could it be?

Well Monday was my twice yearly visit to the doctor's office, where I get a few things checked (think of it as being a Jiffy Lube kind of thing:  I go in and basically just get a 10 point service), so I decided to ask my intrepid doctor about my pain in the foot.  Well he asked me a few questions (New shoes?  Drop anything on it?) and pretty much decided that x-rays were in order.  Fortunately for me, the office my doctor is located in has an x-ray lab, so it was just a few steps down the hallway and before you know it I was laying on a stretcher with a bare foot on an x-ray plate.  20 minutes after that I was back in a treatment room, looking at my freakishly looking foot bones (which make me look like some kind of chimpanzee).

The good news?

That would be that:

1) Nothing is broken
2) I don't have some kind of abscess, tumor, general nastiness

The not-so-good news?

That would be that I apparently...or maybe, as I am not sure...have arthritis in my foot.  Seriously, I may have arthritis in my foot.  Now let the unanswerable questions begin:  Aren't I too young for this?  Why my foot?  Is this going to get worse?  What can I do about it?

Needless to say there aren't answers to all my questions.  What can I do about it?  Really not all that much actually, other than lose some weight (I need to do that anyway) and take over the counter pain medications.  That's pretty much it.

My mother actually suffered quite a bit from arthritis in her later years, and one of my younger brothers told me a few months ago that he was diagnosed with in in his neck.  Apparently there is something of a family history to it all.  This is what I've got to look forward to?

Actually I am pretty much okay with the whole thing.  Why?  Well truth be told, I have a pretty high tolerance for discomfort, and if I am going to have this, better in a foot than in, say, my hands.  It's also early enough that there really could be things I can do about it to alleviate the symptoms.  Lastly, and most importantly, I am generally healthy and I have a good life, and having a pain in the foot is not going to change that one iota.

Boldly stepping into the future...errr, with my right foot that is...