Today, Everything Is Swell

Betty Ford welcomes you to ... Project Betty zürcher art

I started rehab today. Not that kind of rehab.  I'm at a "spa" clinic in the small town of Zurzach, Switzerland to have three weeks of treatment for my secret condition.  Ok.  Well it's not that secret.  And it's not that exotic of a condition.  I have lymphedema. You'll remember from elementary school health class, or high school biology, that the body has a lymph system that moves lymph fluid around.  That's probably all they told you; no-one paid much attention to the lymph system back then.  For a quick refresher: lymph fluid, which is a mostly clear fluid, combines with blood and circulates through the body outward toward the extremities.  At some point (mostly near the surface of the skin) the lymph fluid separates itself out from the blood and travels through tissues where it's main purpose is to grab on to foreign particles and bacteria and move them out of the body.  The lymph system is part of the bodies immune sewer system and serves the purpose of flushing everything out.

There is a network of specialized lymph vessels in the body whose purpose is to pick up the lymph fluid and move it back towards the heart.  Of course, you find these vessels in greater concentration at lymph nodes - places like the groin and armpits and under your ears.  The function of the lymph nodes is to scrub the foreign particles out of the lymph fluid.  Which is why you might experience swollen lymph nodes when your body is fighting an infection and those nodes are real busy.

The lymph system is a passive system.  Unlike the system that circulates the blood, there's not a big active pump like the heart in place to move the fluid.  The lymph system relies on pressure and passive pumping to get things moving.  The required pressure comes from the pressure of the atmosphere against  skin, and the passive pumping comes from the muscles doing whatever chore they do.  The calf muscles play a big role in moving lymph fluid out of the feet and lower legs, moving the fluid on its way back to the heart.  As you walk around all day flexing and extending your calf muscle the muscle pushes against the skin which pushes back thanks to air pressure.  This squeezes the lymph fluid in between into the lymph system and up and out.  That's (one reason) why your ankles swell when you are riding on an airplane.  Not only is the air pressure lower, providing less resistance, you probably aren't moving your calf muscle very much so the fluid pools around your angles and in your feet.

I don't even need to ride on a plane to have the fun of swollen ankles.  Seems like some part of my lymph system has been inadequate since I was born.  So even at normal elevations, and with normal exercise, the movement of my muscles and the air pressure isn't enough to get my passive lymph system moving merrily along.

I've actually had a swollen right foot from lymph fluid pooling there since I was a toddler.  When I turned twenty my ankles swelled up too.  And today, my right leg is swollen up past my knee.  In the last few years, I've also started to have fluid accumulating in my left foot. 

If you look at pictures of people that actually suffer with lymphedema you will see people whose limbs have ballooned up to almost unmanageable sizes.  I am lucky that I am only inconvenienced by lymphedema.  Most people who've seen me naked (and that's really a lot of people) haven't even noticed the swelling (and only one foot fetishist ever kicked me out of bed).  Which is to say that lymphedema hasn't hindered my life.

But as the condition is progressive, and as the signs are presenting that it is progressing, it's time to go in for a course of treatment.  And that treatment means living in the Zurzach Rehab Center for the next three weeks. 

The treatment is a cake walk though (for the most part).  It's a case of an ounce of prevention in time saving nine pounds of cure.

I'll tell you more about it later.
posted by Steve at 1/31/2006 02:16:00 PM

I've attempted to leave this blog in the state it was in early 2006 as a historical artifact, but Google broke my original Archive page. What you see above is a quick reconstruction to rebuild some archive functionality without altering the original blog layout (or researching too deeply into Blogspot).

Original Contents Copyright 2002 - J. Stephen Holyer. All Rights Reserved.