Apology/explanation to a Walgreens employee

To the Walgreens employee who saw me lurking around your tool section Friday afternoon: There was a good reason for my strange behavior. I had just read the sizing instructions for the thigh-high compression socks available in your pharmacy section. The instructions said to measure the circumference  of your  thigh where your buttock made a straight line across it (which represented a new visual to me of my body parts), then the circumference of the thickest part of your calf and finally the length from your buttock line (there it is again) at the top of your thigh to your heel. I didn't happen to be carrying a tape measure with me but realized that in a store stocked so well as yours, there would probably be one in the tool section.

Which is why I had one of your brand new tape measures wrapped around the upper-most part of my thigh and was feeling around behind me to bring the tape up to the afore-mentioned straight line. Had you not fled (to seek store security?), you would have seen me measure my calf (17 inches) and inseam (33 inches). The thigh measure was 25 inches. The sock instructions said that the hose should not be used if the thigh measurement was more than 25 inches. But I had resisted the temptation to get an accurate measurement by pulling down my pants. So by taking the thickness of my jeans into account, I figured I was under 25 inches and bought the hose and escaped before security showed up in aisle three.

The measurement appears to be correct as I have been wearing the hose since Friday and they have reduced the swelling considerably. Of course, I have also been on two blood thinners, which might have a role in what appears to me to be an improvement. I saw the hematologist on Thursday, and he mentioned that I might be able to stop taking the Coumadin soon. But until today I had heard nothing to confirm that and continued on both medicines. When my Coumadin level was measured today it came in right on target at 3, and soon after I got a call from the hematologist's office telling me to drop the Coumadin and go with the medicine he prescribed. Do these people talk to each other?

I admit to some hesitancy over using the compression hose. This because of my new understanding of blood clots, which I had pictured as a pebble rolling through increasingly smaller pipes until it could go no further. What I didn't realize is that other clots form behind this pebble until you end up in a situation like mine where the clot is backed up from my vena cava (see diagram)  somewhere in my abdomen all the way down to my foot. I had images of compression hose squeezing this blood sausage up out of my leg into my vena cava where a mesh of wires resides, a "bird's nest filter" installed during the 1990 war on clots that caused my pulmonary embolism back then. I dreamed one night that this filter strained this toothpaste-like squeeze of thick blood into smaller spaghetti strands intent on conquering hearts and minds in the northern reaches of my body.

Fortunately, this grotesque image was replaced by one of my wife admiring how lovely my legs looked encased in white (see photo). How could I deny her this shapely treat? It  was off to Walgreens.