A Saturday Surprise Of The wrong Sort!

Finally, one part of the medical profession has agreed that a blood glucose reading of 7.4 put me on the diabetic scale. The other part, the Hormone Watch, has yet to have their wicked way with me. Anyhow, Friday morning saw me closeted with the nurse, while she explained the do's and dont's, gave me half a tree's worth of booklets and leaflets, and a cunning device for DIY measuring. This had the happy name of FreeStyle Lite. And yes, it did have a capital letter in the middle of a word.

She also provided a prescription for the little strips that work by capillary action to suck my blood(!) and the lancets that make this possible without need to slit my wrists for a sample. Fine. I duly presented Boots Chemist with the slip, and toddled home with the resultant bag of goodies.

I then had great fun reading all the literature, and trying out the new gadgets. Here I need to explain.The tiny needles are encased in a blue plastic holder, which slips into the round hole in the electronic monitor.

When I opened the box of 100 lancets, they were grey - and square. And we all know of the square peg-round hole syndrome.
I failed to convince Boots, when I phoned, that there had been a mistake, and was asked to take everything in on Saturday, for them to inspect.

At this point, Sod's Law came into force. Saturday was grey and wet. No walking in Birkenstock, bare toed comfort, for boots, raincoat and hat were obviously needed. My little black leather ankle boots had hibernated in the shoe cupboard, but on inspection, seemed to be wearable still. Off I trotted, once clad, and eventually the Boots pharmacist agreed the square/round problem, and said they'd have words with the surgery on Monday.

I headed homeward, trundling trusty shopping trolley before me, head down against the elements. By the time I reached the homeward straight, I noticed my two feet were not making the same sound as I walked; the right seemed to squelch. I put this down to my favouring one foot, due to somewhat wonky right knee, and thought no more of it.

Once inside the front door, I took off soggy mac and cap and headed down the passage to sit in a chair so's I could unlace the boots. This is where the surprise came in. Both soles had disintegrated, the right one more than the left, and when I glance back down the passage, there was a trail of crumbled, black, sponge like substance left in my wake... Just as well I'd not had to walk through any puddles. As it was, my right sock had just begun to show signs of sogginess, though the left was unscathed.

I've never had a pair of boots die on me before. It goes to prove the old adage, there's a first time for everything.

P.S. Please note, folks , they were NOT Wellingtons! I don't have Wellington shaped feet. I have Birkenstok shaped feet - wide and square at the toes.