The bad news: I am going to die.
The good news: Not for another 60 years.
The tests conclude that I don't have cancer. Probably. Further tests can be done but they are expensive, involve more radiation and still won't be 100% conclusive. I will need to keep track of my tumours, to make sure there isn't any growth (which I do any way) and to take very, very good care of all the X-Rays I have accumulated throughout my life (which is many).
I am told that the issues I am having with my feet are mechanical in nature. The growths around my ankles and the surgeries I have had have caused the muscles in that area to develop in a bad way. The pain is mostly derived from the interaction of the muscles and nerves rubbing against the tumours. My ankles have become stiffer and have lost some range of motion. I have arthritis around there as well, but I had already suspected that. These things are going to get worse over time, and my ability to walk is going to decrease over the next several years.
So what does this all mean? For me, it means that I will be doubling my efforts when it comes to walking, biking, Hapkido and the like. I want to take advantage of what I do have for as long as I can, so when these things start becoming really difficult, I only have to work on maintaining my weight/muscle/form. It's funny how those sorts of things never concerned me X years ago when my legs were (relatively) normal.
Although I haven't inquired about medication, I'm sure they would only be too expensive, have dodgy side effects and would only deal with the pain issue and not the loss of function. Due to the messiness of that area when it comes to nerves, muscles and so forth, surgery is very, very difficult, and would only occur if a tumour goes malignant or a nerve is slowly being crushed (or other bad things like that).
Although at the moment I'm somewhat alright when it comes to walking (it usually takes about 20-30 minutes before I start walking funny), stairs have recently become my mortal enemy. More so when it's those fifty odd stairs at the train platform and you're carrying a heavy bag. Short of robbing the elderly, where does one get a cane from?
This
site is about one of my favourite topics - the beauty that is Australian colloquialisms. Bloody ripper.