My test results are in....

Gee, all that anxiety, all that waiting... for nothing. My MRI showed nothing wrong with my knee. This may seem like good news. Not to me. You see, I need a reason why my knee hurts to bend, why it is swollen, why when I move in certain ways I get a searing pain deep inside my knee. 

It is feeling a little better today. In fact I was down to one crutch, which made carrying things so much easier. Anyway, my doctor seems to think that an MRI is just a picture. If he took a picture of me with my eyes closed, he wouldn't be able to tell what color they were. But I still have brown eyes. (Does this analogy make sense?)

 So, the next step is a shot of cortisone. The doctor left the room to prepare the shot (or so I thought). The assistant (nurse? lackey?) brought in the needle, prep pad, Band-Aid etc.  And so I waited for the doc to come back in to expertly administer the shot. And I waited. Patients were coming, being seen/treated, and released from the rooms  all around me. And still I waited. Finally the gal came back and looked startled to see me still sitting there. She eyed the needle (which had been staring at me from across the room for about 15 minutes now) and bolted. 

Soon another nice woman came in and explained that my doctor was suddenly called to surgery and his associate would be in shortly to give the injection. And as promised in walked a much taller doctor joking how he was my original doctor only that he had grown. Ha ha ha. He asked me the problem and as I answered he began to prep my knee, interrupting me as though he had never asked a question. Ah, bedside manner! The coolest part was that he took this awesome spray that shot out really cold fluid and numbed the heck out of my knee (and a portion of my shin as it trickled down). He then placed the needle in which didn't hurt at all and injected the liquid- now that felt a little uncomfortable as the cortisone spread through my knee, but then it stopped.

So, now I am to call the doctor (the shorter one) on Monday and let him know how my knee feels. If I feel better, great the cortisone worked (?). If not, he'll scope it and see what the heck is going on in there.  If the shot worked, why and what was wrong? Will I hurt it again as soon as I start working out again? I don't want a bandage on a big problem, I want the problem fixed. It's not as though I have a cortisone deficiency in my knee joint. That's the problem with medicine today. It's not really about curing. It's about making you feel better until you need to come back and have something else done. Why do doctor's get paid so much for having no idea what the heck is going on? I mean, it's kind of like a meteorologist. He'll say, "Well, it might rain." Then, " Oops, maybe tomorrow." And the doc says, "Oh, that medicine didn't work? Here try this one ( by the way, the pharmaceutical company which supplies that product just sent me and my adorable family on a trip to the Bahamas.)."  Ooh, sounding bitter or is that just the aftertaste of my pain medicine? 

You may be wondering if the the cortisone is working. I think it is a little. I have more mobility in my knee, I can bend it further than earlier today. I walked up the steps normally a few times and went down a few steps normally (although quite gingerly). The swelling is still there. I'm still walking with a limp without the brace. The good news is I may be able to drive tomorrow. It still hurts and that's the bad part. I really want to jump and get down on the floor to play with the kids or to look for that shoe I tossed under the bed. Maybe even play a little Tiger Woods Golf on the wii.  We'll see what happens and I'll keep you posted. (ha ha, get it... posted? It's a blog, and you post....)

A Visit to Dana

Today we decided it was about time we pay a visit to Dana our neighbor who was injured when run over and pinned under a car on I83. She is currently at a Manor Care facility and is the youngest resident there. What a shitty place to recover. Her roommate is an 89 year old dialysis patient. She's directly across from Physical Therapy and next to the nurse's station. It's a wonder she can get any rest at all. The food stinks and it sometimes spoiled. She went through three milk containers today before she got one that didn't have any solids. But, with all that and the fact that she is missing her two front teeth she's in pretty good spirits. She should be coming home next week which she is really looking forward to. Her left ankle is healing well and she no longer has pain in it. Her right knee and hip are healing well too but that leaves her somewhat uncomfortable still. Her finger is fractured but she's not so worried about that. Her 2 broken ribs are completely healed. Something is wrong with one of her discs but she's not sure yet and she has to finish repairing everything else before she gets to that. She seems most upset about the scars from the hip operation (runs across her lower abdomen) and the one straight up and down her belly area. She's also got a lot of burns and scrape scars on her hands arms and legs. She think she looks like a monster. I don't. She actually looks kid of cute and childish with those front teeth missing.
She remembers the initial accident which caused her to get out of her car but she does not remember getting hit or anything else for the next 5 days. She's afraid of remembering actually. She had to go to shock trauma yesterday for a check up and had a hard time just traveling on 83. I'm sure it was nerve racking. She has had bad dreams about getting hit by a car in the neighbor's driveway. That must really suck.
As for pain, she says it's not so bad and they are slowly weaning her from the Oxycontin. She's quite a trooper. She's mostly bummed about her 21st birthday coming up in October and not knowing how well she will be. I'm sure that will give her plenty of reason to work harder to recover.
So, I guess this just makes me that much more grateful that my injury is so minor. We never know how lucky we are. Accidents like this really help to put life in perspective, don't they.

Something Jen said...

My friend Jen asked me yesterday, as I was walking to the court, how I was. I answered, "miserable, frustrated and annoyed." Being on crutches, unable to drive has left me searching for rides like a teenager. I think about every trip up and down the stairs trying to maximize my efforts on each floor. I sit to cook asking the kids to bring me this and that. It's a pain in the ass.
But, her response has gotten me thinking. She answered that she could imagine how I felt being that she would be the worst disabled person. She cited how pissed off she gets if something is in her contacts and she can't see or if water gets in her ears and her hearing is muffled. I totally agree. How annoying when any of our abilities are even slightly compromised.
And then, I continued walking to the court where my neighbor Rene was washing his truck and his wife's car. And I thought, how dare I complain. You see, Rene has limited use of his right hand and his left arm was amputated from the elbow down. But there he was, smiling as always, washing away the dirt and grime as efficiently as any two-armed person. His gloved hand expertly sprayed the water while his hook guided the hose. Both limbs, prosthetic and real, scrubbing with the brush.
And earlier in the day I was speaking to my neighbor Debbie. I was asking how her daughter Dana was. You see, Dana was in an accident in May. She got out of her car to investigate the damage and was struck by a car and pinned under it. She broke lots of bones, suffered internal injuries, lost her teeth and has been in a rehab hospital since leaving shock trauma. But, she's doing great, learning to use crutches so she can some home next week.
And here I am, complaining that I have to be on crutches and can't drive. I'll most likely have a quick and easy outpatient operation, do a little physical therapy for a few weeks and be right back to my normal existence. I won't have to spend weeks in a burn unit floating between life and death like Rene. I won't have to relive the trauma of an accident in my dreams. I won't have to relearn to walk. I won't have to learn to use a prosthetic limb.
So thank you Jen for making me take a look at how good I really have it in this world. I can't imagine what Rene and Dana have been through nor do I really want to - it's too hard, but I can appreciate how far they've come, how far they have to go. And maybe I'll be a little less miserable, frustrated and annoyed from now on.

Telephone Answering Systems

I have lately injured my knee and am on crutches, in a brace and on a bad day in enough pain to warrant a Percocet (or two or three). Through this process I have had to call the orthopedist's office a few times. Of course, you expect an answering service to field the "How do I get to the office?" and "What are your hours?" questions. But, once you get past that and onto the line of the secretary for the doctor, you would like a person to answer. Instead, I have been thanked for my patience and told how someone will be with me soon or will get to my call in the order in which it was received. Now I know how busy a doctor's office can be and I want the person answering the phone to take their time with each patient. But if you call 4 times in one day and each time are instantly on hold after pressing 3 for Dr. X then automatically asked to leave a message after a few minutes, what is the point of the holding in the first place? The same thing happened to me when I called the insurance company to see if I needed approval for the MRI which of course I didn't and I knew that and if the secretary had listened to me on the day of my initial appointment I wouldn't have had to go through any of this aggravation!!! AGGHHH!
Sorry, calming down. Anyway, if they don't have time to answer the phone, just send me right to voice mail. Although, this isn't the best outcome either considering I left a few messages and no one called me back. So, I went for the press "0" or stay on the line option and got a very nice person who tried to pry the other call out of Dr. X's secretary's hands to help me, then just helped me herself. All I wanted to do was schedule an MRI. It's not like I wanted a prescription written without being seen (although I am running low on those Percocets) or a diagnosis over the phone. Alas, I was scheduled and I had my MRI, which was very pleasant by the way. In fact, I was so relaxed I fell asleep for about 20 of the 40 minutes it took to scan my knee.
So, my point today is, when I rule the world people will answer phones. There will be ample staff at doctor's offices, insurance companies and customer service centers. Even if the person answering the phone can't really help but can take a real message that will be given to a real person. And perhaps there will be an emplyee whose only job is to call back people who have left messages so customers and patients will think someone actually gives a hoot about them. Well, I guess I'll have to wait patiently on hold for a while until I am crowned queen of the world. Have a nice day.