Day 196-352 (Part 4): The Day My Feet Joined The Smurfs (And GOOGLE Planned My Funeral)

14 hours ago
6 min read

There are certain moments in life that stay with you forever.

Your first kiss.

Passing your driving test.

Buying your first house.

And then…

The day your feet decide they’re auditioning for Avatar.

But I’m getting ahead of myself...

By the beginning of April, I’d completely hit the wall.

Not a gentle little bump.

A full-speed, face-first collision.

After months of telling myself I was “just tired”, my body finally staged a full-scale rebellion.

I was signed off work for three weeks because I physically couldn’t carry on.

I had absolutely no energy.

Not “I’ll have an early night and be fine tomorrow” tired.

I mean getting dressed felt like cardio.

Having a shower required a strategic risk assessment.

Washing my hair deserved a medal.

Walking upstairs felt like I’d accidentally entered the London Marathon.

The dizziness was relentless.

Every time I stood up, my body seemed genuinely offended that I’d attempted such an extreme sport.

Standing? Really?

Bit ambitious, don’t you think?

Some days the room spun.

Some days I felt like I was walking on a trampoline.

Other days I genuinely wondered whether I’d accidentally had three glasses of wine before breakfast.

I hadn’t.

Unfortunately.

I’d gone from dancing until 4am, travelling, always being on the go and squeezing every bit out of life…

…to celebrating the fact I’d managed to empty the dishwasher without needing a recovery nap afterwards.

This wasn’t me.

I knew it.

Everyone around me knew it.

Even my cats looked mildly concerned.

Then one afternoon…

Things got even weirder.

I’d been pottering around the house because “pottering” had officially become my main hobby.

Honestly, if pottering became an Olympic event, I’d have brought home gold.

I happened to walk past the mirror.

Glanced down.

Stopped.

Looked again.

Then looked a third time because surely my brain had temporarily disconnected from my eyeballs.

My feet…

Were blue.

Again!

Not slightly purple.

Not “they’re a bit cold.”

Not “maybe it’s the lighting.”

I mean…

BLUE.

The sort of blue Dulux would call Nordic Fjord, stick on a fancy label and charge you an extra £12 a tin for.

Proper Smurf blue.

Blue enough that Papa Smurf himself would’ve gone,

“Steady on, love.”

Naturally, I remained calm.

HAHAHAHA.

Absolutely not.

I immediately phoned my boyfriend.

Not shouted him from another room.

Actually rang him.

“Hi.”

“Alright?”

“I need you to answer a question.”

“…Go on.”

“Are my feet blue?”

Silence.

Not ordinary silence.

The sort of silence where you can practically hear somebody questioning every life decision that’s led them to this exact conversation.

“…What?”

“My feet.”

“What about them?”

“I think they’re blue.”

“Blue?”

“Yes.”

“As in… blue blue?”

“Not navy.”

“Not turquoise.”

“Smurf.”

Another pause.

Then…

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

To be fair, if your girlfriend randomly phones asking you to confirm the colour of her feet, your first instinct probably isn’t “medical emergency.”

It’s probably…

“Well…

She’s finally lost the plot.”

“I’ll have a look when I get home.”

WHEN YOU GET HOME?!

Excuse me?

What if this was my body’s version of a limited-time offer?

Honestly, the lack of urgency felt deeply offensive.

So I did what every sensible adult does.

I took photos.

Lots of photos.

Different angles.

Different lighting.

With flash.

Without flash.

At one point I nearly put one foot next to a sheet of printer paper for colour comparison like I was documenting evidence for Crimewatch.

Then…

Because apparently I enjoy terrifying myself…

I Googled it.

Now, Google and I have what can only be described as a toxic relationship.

Google has exactly one setting.

Maximum panic.

Headache?

Brain tumour.

Sore throat?

Rare tropical disease.

Paper cut?

You’ve probably got six minutes left.

Blue feet?

Google basically replied,

“Congratulations. You’re dead.”

Brilliant.

Thanks.

Really helpful.

Within thirty seconds I’d diagnosed myself with poor circulation, blood clots, heart failure, vascular disease, frostbite despite being indoors in April, seventeen autoimmune diseases…

…and somehow pregnancy.

Google always manages to squeeze pregnancy into the conversation.

Stubbed your toe?

Pregnant.

Sneezed twice?

Pregnant.

Blue feet?

Probably twins.

By the time my other half got home I’d mentally organised my own funeral playlist.

He walked through the front door.

Before he’d even taken his shoes off I shoved both feet in his face.

“There!”

He looked.

Paused.

Looked again.

“…They are a bit blue.”

A BIT?!

Mate…

My feet looked like they’d signed a Netflix deal with the Smurfs.

I was expecting panic.

Concern.

Urgency.

Instead…

“Maybe ring the GP.”

Maybe?

MAYBE?

Thankfully, I did.

Predictably, by the time I actually got there…

My feet had gone back to normal.

Typical.

Honestly, my body had the comedic timing of Mr Bean.

“So… what’s been happening?”

“My feet keep turning blue.”

“Are they blue now?”

“…No.”

“Do you have photographs?”

Reader…

Never underestimate an anxious woman with an iPhone.

I proudly presented what can only be described as The Blue Feet Collection™.

The GP looked through the photos.

Then started asking questions.

The dizziness.

The exhaustion.

The racing heart.

The feeling I was going to faint every time I stood up.

And for the first time…

Somebody started joining the dots.

Instead of treating every symptom like a completely unrelated drama queen, someone finally realised they might all belong to the same family.

I was referred to a cardiologist.

Finally.

Someone who specialised in hearts rather than looking at me as if I’d invented a brand-new illness during my lunch break.

That appointment changed everything.

After listening to everything and carrying out further investigations, he diagnosed me with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) and Orthostatic Hypotension (OH).

Suddenly, months of bizarre symptoms finally started making sense.

My systolic blood pressure had been sitting between 70 and 90 for what felt like forever.

Anything over 90 was basically a national celebration.

Meanwhile my heart had clearly decided it fancied a career as an endurance athlete.

Stand up?

120 beats per minute.

Walk to the kitchen?

Fold some washing?

Walk upstairs?

Apparently my heart believed making a cup of tea was an extreme sport.

Then there were my feet.

Those ridiculous blue feet.

They’d turn blue.

Sometimes purple.

They became unbelievably hot.

The itching was absolutely unbearable.

Honestly, I wanted to attack them with a garden rake.

I genuinely convinced myself my toes were dying.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I thought amputation might actually be on the cards.

When nobody can explain what’s happening to your body, your imagination fills in the blanks…

…and it always assumes the worst.

As if all that wasn’t enough, I was freezing all the time.

Not “I’ll grab a jumper.”

Bone-deep freezing.

Everyone else could be sitting there perfectly comfortable while I was wrapped in blankets looking like an anxious burrito.

Then there was the internal shivering.

How do you even explain that?

It felt like my whole body had quietly switched itself to vibrate mode and forgotten how to turn it off.

No amount of blankets helped.

No amount of hot drinks helped.

I was cold from the inside out.

The cardiologist also believed there was something much bigger driving all of this.

Looking at the timeline after my COVID infections, he suspected Long Covid was playing a major part in everything I was experiencing.

So I left with two diagnoses…

…and yet another referral.

This time to a Long Covid specialist.

Another consultant.

Another appointment.

Another letter.

Honestly, by this point I was seeing so many consultants that I was beginning to think we should start exchanging Christmas cards.

I’m fairly sure my private health insurer had a file somewhere labelled “Monika… again.”

Every time another referral went through, I imagined someone sighing, reaching for my notes and saying,

“Right then… what body part has gone rogue this week?”

Walking out of that appointment was emotional.

Nobody wants to hear they have lifelong conditions.

But after months of wondering whether I was lazy…

Whether it was anxiety…

Whether I was imagining it…

Whether I was simply becoming one of those people who constantly talks about their health…