diagnosing my mystery illness
My turkey-jerky-textured heart has been tugged to the point of near-emotiveness at the torrential outpouring of well-wishing and corny folk-medicine tips which have flooded my mailbox since yesterday's entry about having pain in my legs.
The good news is that my suffering has mostly abated, and I am able to walk around, do jumping jacks, and practice swing-dance steps like I always do. But though the pain is gone, the culprit remains elusive. Readers suggested that my condition was caused by:
• a kidney stone
• a urinary tract infection
• a blood clot in my leg
• sciatica
• arthritis
• an allergic reaction to medication
• a bite from a brown recluse spider
And yet as I struggled this morning to zip up and close the button on my size-32 Lee black jeans, it occurred to me that yesterday's howling pain may have been caused by nothing more sinister than tight pants. My weight is always fluctuating, and lately my vast wardrobe of black and blue jeans—all of them size 32—have been strangling my waist, gnawing at the excess flab ribbon around my midriff. My pelvic and leg areas—the same regions which are constricted by a snug pair of pants—were exactly the parts where I felt pain. It's possible that a tight pair of pants...or a series of expeditions whilst wearing tight pants...has crushed my internal organs, or at least bruised some muscles or pinched a nerve.
I cannot—I WILL not—abandon size 32. It's been my size since high school, and it's a matter of personal valor to wear this size until I'm stuffed in a pine box. I just need to make a few lifestyle changes, that's all. A few more situps and a few less visits to Krispy Kreme, and my trousers will cease to cause me a level of pain that makes me want to die.
