He is telling me this because why?!?

David is massaging my feet.   He is the best spouse.  We’d returned from an after-dinner walk; instead of me taking the lead, I’d been dragging my feet a bit, looking a little low.

(I’d had a cardiologist’s appointment in the morning.  More tests – this one with me wearing an air-tight mask, riding a bike, hooked up to all sorts of monitors – to see how long it would take for me to get chest pain.  5 minutes.  It takes 5 minutes for me to get chest pain.  “Just another minute or so of data Heather,” said the Doc.  “Just 80 seconds more, then we’ll have a good reading!”  Giving me the thumbs up sign and smiling a wide, encouraging smile.  Having been instructed not to talk during the test, I said nothing, but I was thinking really hard, “Quit being so fucking cheerful you rat fucking bastard!”)

“So,” asks David that evening.  “Diagnosis?”

I snort.  “Not yet.  Still have to wait for him to go over stuff.  Although he assured me that ‘We’d get to the bottom of this,’ and that ‘Heart disease in women is different than in men,’  whatever the hell that means.  To me, it sounds like he thinks I have heart disease, which I kind of already had figured out myself.”

“He’s a cardiologist – he thinks everyone has heart disease.  Don’t get all freaked out.”

“I’m not freaked out.  Any diagnosis would be a relief.”

David is smoothing his hands along my right foot, trying his best to relieve my tension, when, swear to God, he suddenly stops and says, “What is THAT?!?” in a horrified tone.

“What is what?”  I calmly ask.

“You’ve got this lump on the bottom of your foot,” he says.  And then he shows me this lumpy bit of something attached to my foot ligaments.

I poke at it.  It hurts a bit.   And then I laugh.

“Seriously?” I ask.  “You are pointing out more weird-ass health stuff to me, right now?”

“It’s probably just a cyst,” says David, now realizing his folly.

“Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?  Oooooh!  I’ll bet it’s one of them ganglion cysts…”

David is now mentally slapping his forehead with his palm.  “Now this in no reason to start researching this sort of thing… “

“You mean I shouldn’t research this lump that you just drew my attention to… a lump that heretofore I had never even known about?  Of course not.”

“You’re actually quite healthy you know.”

“HAH!  You mean in spite of all my weird-ass health shit?”

“YES!!  You’re not some frail little flower who just reclines on the settee with… with…”

“The vapours?  Consumption?”

“Sure.”

“That’s not how I roll.   Now look up ‘lump on sole of foot” please.”

ps.  Totally not a ganglion cyst.  I have Ledderhose’s Disease.  I’m going to call it Leiderhosen Disease ’cause that’ll be more fun.  Best thing about Lesiderhosen Disease?  Weird-ass foot lumps (plantar fibroma)  completely benign!  Boo Yeah, who says you can’t learn good shit on the internet?