Episode 13: Dream Messages, Leg Lumps, and Mycophilia

No doubt this episode will sound hyperchondriac-ish, a charge my son lodged against me not long ago—but that one had no merit, as what I described to him had been confirmed by medical tests.  Hypochondria means:
 “extreme depression of mind or spirits often centered on imaginary physical ailments" (Merriam-Webster Online).  

When the conditions are real, and confirmed by lab tests of Western science (the only valid knowledge base on the planet, according to most people I know), the charge of hypochondria falls on its face.  I'm one of those folks whose body is waging a war on itself--but I'm also one of those fortunate folks who tends toward optimism.  I really want to hang around for a while, without being sick.  Others seem to think I enjoy these weird health conditions, but au contraire,  I miss the me who used to be full of energy and verve.  

This newest malady has as yet not been confirmed by a laboratory, so all is speculation at this point.  And, viewers, I truly hope the symptoms turn out to be spurious, as my latest doctor suspects my polycythemia to be.  Lab tests will prove otherwise vis a vis the latter; I remembered after the visit my gorgeous Romanian Hopkins doctor on fellowship saying, in so many words, "So these tests tell us the polycythemia is real, not relative or stess-induced."  

This latest fun, though, has little to nothing to do with polycythemia, as far as I can tell.  

Last week, when I saw my newest doctor, a hematologist/oncologist I'm trading my previous one for, I told him I’d been having left leg pain.  He felt my calves and shins and said he didn’t feel anything, and he saw no swelling.  He was looking for thrombosis, I know, since I have polycythemia (and not spurious).  I didn’t specify that the pain was more frequent in the thigh; I figured this wasn’t really his bailiwick, that it was probably something benign that should be looked at by my regular GP.  And the pain does radiate down to the calf at times.

But afterwards, I felt definite lumps in the soft tissue of the leg. Ever the medical librarian, I began researching the possible causes.  In fact, a number of conditions resulting in lumps in the thigh and behind the knee exist.  Some of them are benign and some are cancer--and then there's fibromyalgia, which could, theoretically, be the culprit for my hyper-sleepiness, God forbid. Oh, well.  I've waited this long; I’m not going to make a special appointment as I see my regular primary care doctor for this.  I've got an appointment with her in January.  But I am very interested in what these lumps and bumps might turn out to be, if anything. 

What’s especially intriguing, though probably completely coincidental, is that I had a dream several months ago before the leg had become a conscious problem.  In the dream, I was in a sitting position and tried to stand, but I couldn’t.  My mother (who has been dead since 1989) came to me and helped me to my feet.  Later in the dream, I found myself in a seated position again, tried to stand, and couldn’t.  This time, my sister had to help me to my feet.  I woke with a disturbed feeling afterwards.  

I have no idea if the dream had any prescience to it, and seriously doubt that it does, but the connection between dreams and health is fascinating.  Was my body trying to tell me something through my dreams?  I firmly believe in the mind-body connection, so why not?

Of course, I’m hoping it wasn’t a prescient dream.  The last thing I need right now is to lose my mobility.  How would I walk through the woods, looking for woodland plants and mushrooms?  Life would hardly be worth living without the ability to do that.  Fortunately, I’m fairly convinced whatever is going on in the leg will turn out to be benign.  I thought it was worth recording the dream here as I await the diagnosis--just in case.

Which is a joke, of course.  I've been on this planet long enough to know that any challenge to the Cosmos is going to reap harsh repercussions.  And I also know about self-fulfilling prophecies, so I'm doing my best to just ignore the dang leg and hope it heals quickly.  Luckily, I'm in the midst of a new obsession--or rather, a briefly flowering obsession that has again--er--mushroomed from that buried mycelium of potentiality.

Very bad pun--sorry.

I wonder if there's a fungus that could heal this leg?

I gave myself the book Mycophilia:  Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms by Eugenia Bone for Christmas, and I've been in an orgy of good writing and fungi for the past two days.  (I almost finished the book on Day One but at 4:17 a.m., after I fell asleep fully conscious of the sentence I'd just read and immediately nodded awake, I told myself to save the last couple of chapters for the next day anyway.  This is the kind of book I hate to see end.  I'm now reading through each of the Notes, in their tiny print, and still gleaning ideas, and dreaming ideas.  And falling ever more deeply in love with mushrooms and other fungi.



Stay tuned.