I have a foot. Actually, I have two, but one is acting up. Acting up so very, very badly.

It started a few months back, perhaps several weeks ago. I’ve lost track. I thought nothing of it at first, but then the pain began to visit me more and more often. Often enough for me to stop in my tracks and pay attention.

I remember telling the PA, “My heels hurt.” He stopped tapping on his laptop long enough to glance in my direction.  I could read his expression, Meh.

“I know with age you start to lose the padding on the soles of your feet,” I hurried up and said to fill the silence.

He nodded and kept on tapping. My life story, or at least my RA life story, used to be a file inches thick. Now I don’t know. It’s held within a slim, flat black box with cold, hard keys. It makes the operator of it a little cold and hard, I think. Not because that’s how he is, but because he has to pay attention to where his fingers land; before he could write with his pen while still looking at me like he was interested in what I was saying.

It’s a dichotomy. I try not to interrupt his tapping, yet if I don’t speak he has nothing to tap about. Anyway, I just wanted it for the record. My heels hurt, but not that day. Though I was a little stiff from sitting in the hard waiting room chair for two hours, I didn’t have much to complain about that day.

On the next visit, I told the doctor, “My heels hurt sometimes. “ Just in case he hadn’t read the previous notes. He glanced up from his iPhone and smiled at me, then his eyes went right back to the screen.  He is on the cutting edge, treatment-wise, always researching each new step from every angle.  So I said nothing further. I trusted he would store that little nugget regarding my feet and pull out the magic formula when the time came.

On this visit we were more concerned with having to add Plaquenil to my cocktail, so my feet were low priority. “I want to see you in six weeks,” he said, making himself a note. “When are you back? How long will you be gone?”

I love a man who listens.

“I’ll be back by then,” I said. I’d told him I was traveling to see my baby granddaughter.

By the time we left, I had an angry right foot. It could be somewhat mollified with Advil, Tylenol or Aleve. They took turns stifling the fire. The pain made itself most at home in my right heel. I’ll rest it; it’ll be fine, I thought. Hah!

It was busy, busy, lots to do. Strolling down Bourbon Street was fun while it was happening.

“Oh, my God,” my daughter exclaimed. “That bar was in Bar Rescue.” She had all the backstory portrayed on the TV show about the rivalry between it and another bar up the road. I stopped and looked at it; it didn’t look like much from across the street.

And that was exactly the trouble. It was across the street.

“Go inside and look around,” I said. “I’ll wait here with the kids.” She is a bar aficionado. Wants to own one day. (!)

She stared at it for a bit, then shrugged and kept on walking. I was relieved. As long as I kept moving, I could quell the fire. My synapses were busy concentrating on other parts of my body, but when I stopped, oh my! Even the sugar high from the beignets was not enough to distract my brain from the pain while sitting.

I blamed the extra activity for the acuteness of the pain, but once I returned home and had all the leisure I could desire I had to find another culprit.

Maybe I fractured something?

Could it be RA being its mean old self?

Yesterday, I couldn’t bear weight on my heel.  Walking on the ball of my foot hurt exponentially worse. It was so bad, I saw stars while I limped from room to room. And I thought twice before moving. Did I really have to go pee? Right then? Could it wait a bit?

I went to bed with one thought: see my PCP, get an Rx for an x-ray, and then hobble over to the diagnostic center.

Today it barely hurts and I managed to walk the grocery store without a problem. I’m stumped. As Wolf Blitzer would say: What is going on?