Feet and Ears

The visiting of doctors continues.  Jim's foot had not improved significantly with icing and TENS therapy so we went to see the podiatrist again.  The fat pad on Jim's heel has thinned somewhat, which has caused the bursa to become inflamed from too much pounding on the heel.  Now we are taping.  After my first foot surgery I spent too much time on crutches and gave myself plantar faciitis.  I spent a year icing and taping, it was brutal.  So now Jim will learn the joy of athletic tape.  The goal is to pooch up the heel and then strap it firmly so there is more flesh under the heel.  It's a process.  Dr. Lewis' taping is a thing of beauty, I aspire to be as good as he is.

After the podiatrist, we had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant.  It was ok.  Not great, not terrible.  I had barbequed quail legs.  The sauce on them was really good, it had a slight taste of orange.  The quail was good, but it's kind of a pain to eat, and there's not much of it for the amount of effort expended eating it.

Then we went over to Uwajimaya, which is an Asian grocery store.  I love looking at stuff there.  We were interested to see chili paste with holy basil.

It is originally from India and is used in Ayurvedic medicine as an “adaptogen” to counter life’s stresses. It is considered a sacred plant by the Hindus and is often planted around Hindu shrines. The Hindu name for holy basil, Tulsi, means "the incomparable one." Medicine is made from the leaves, stems, and seeds. 

I had never heard of it before, of course there are many things of which I have not heard.

Cute mayonnaise containers.

Farmed tilapia.  They're good sized fish.

Crabs on the hoof.

They have a cool housewares section.  I like the egg faces.

Today we saw the ear surgeon.  The paper patch he installed two weeks ago slipped, and was no longer in place to encourage the hole to close, and so it didn't.  We discussed proceeding with the fat plug.  It has a lower success rate than the paper patch, but it's what's left in my progression of ear surgeries.  He wasn't inclined to do it, since we're leaving soon, but I convinced him that he should.  At noon today, that's what we were doing.  The surgeon makes a small incision in the ear lobe and removes fat.  Then he puts a pointed tool into the hole and irritates the edges a little; after which the fat is forced into the hole.  It's sort of like a dumb bell with some on the other side of the ear drum, and some on the exterior side.  It's a fairly uncomfortable process.  If I ever do that again, drugs will be taken before hand.  There will be at least three more weeks of showering with the cotton ball, the vaseline, the band-aid and the dixie cup over the ear.  I'm fairly despondent about this, having a hole in the eardrum increases the likelihood of ear infections, which erode the graft and likely send us back to the operating room in five years.
We're here for one more week, and then heading directly to Tucson.  Have you been watching the news?  Phoenix has been having flash flooding with swift water rescues.  Hopefully this will not be happening when we go through there.