Thoughts from Crow Cottage (My Main Blog.)

crowbelle's Diaryland Diary

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BEX-THE-PATIENT REPORTING IN...

Bex-the-patient, reporting in�

It had been so long � so very, very long � since I�d been considered a patient of anyone � more than 10 years, I can�t be sure just when my last doctor�s visit was before this summer, but I have been cruising along through life without a medical care in the world � up until now.

Well, not really without a single care � I have all sorts of aches and pains, but since no one with an official M.D. after her/his name has told me I have any particular disease or ailment, then for all intents and purposes, I didn�t! That was how I thought, at least.

I guess you would call it self-delusion on the grandest scale. Aches and pains are just part of getting old, right?

I have been lucky enough for most of my life to have not required much medical assistance, apart from having to have a bunionectomy on my left foot back in the early 1980s. I need one on my right foot, too, but never got around to having that side done. The left one had me in the hospital for a whole week, in a cast from foot to knee for six weeks, and unable to really walk normally for months and months and months after surgery. In fact, I remember distinctly that I used to run (jog) before having that surgery, and I had the operation in March of that year. I did not start jogging again until sometime in September. To me, that was a long time to go without jogging � or even walking normally. I had the illusion that I would go back to the orthopedist at the end of my six weeks in the cast, he would cut it off, and I would be back to normal right away.

Uh-uh. Oh no.

I had to use crutches for a while still after having the cast taken off. My foot had a metal rod in it that went from my big toe, on the top of my foot, down about 3 or 4 inches, to keep my toe straight after all that excess bony formation had been chopped off in surgery. The rod didn�t come out for some more weeks, and I had to get special shoes to wear that would fit around my swollen foot for a while.

Anyway, it was a lot more time-consuming that I�d planned on�so after that, I just never had the opportunity again to take all that time off from my job and my life, as I got married a few years later, and being married means having no more time to yourself, for the most part.

The only other thing I ever had wrong with me (besides the unnamed aches and pains) was when I was 14. We used to go every day after school to jump on some public trampolines that came to town, and little did I know that that type of exercising would affect me for the rest of my life. I woke up one morning, and walked from my bed to the bathroom and collapsed into a pile on the floor. The pain from my lower spine was excruciating, and I had no idea why. When I was put into bed, I could not move one inch of my body for at least two weeks after that. The doctor came out to inspect me (this was back in the day of house visits, god-bless-them!). He said I would need x-rays of my spine but that I would have to wait a while for the pain to stop before moving me. I lay there for 2 weeks and couldn�t move even my eyeballs without excruciating pain in my spine. When I finally was able to go to the doc�s office and get x-rayed, he told us I was born with an extra lumbar vertebra, way down at the bottom of my lumbar spine, near the coccyx area, and that we had two options: 1) to do surgery, remove the extra vertebra, and I would be in a body cast for close to a year! or 2) do nothing, and just be very careful for the rest of my life with regard to exercising.

We chose #2.

We didn�t have the money then for that type of surgical operation, and we didn�t think being in a full body cast for a year would go over too well in our household. Both Mum and Dad worked full-time, I was only 14, my brother was 12, and we were typical kids who liked to get out of the house and play as much as possible.

All those years of dancing lessons I had taken, and of gymnastic lessons, and dance recitals, and vaudeville shows at the Y, were a thing of the past for me. I had to be careful of my back.

And so I have been.

And I�ve had some lulu back problems over the years, but nothing that has required hospitalization. I�d just bear the pain as best I could now and then when my back would act up, and take a day or two off from work, if necessary.

And that�s been it for me. No broken bones. No pneumonia (when my mother, father and brother all got pneumonia at the same time one Christmas, but I didn�t!), and no weird childhood diseases, with the exception of the usual mumps and chickenpox, but you didn�t go to the hospital for those back then.

So here I am, at 58 years old, and I�m finally rejoining the medical community of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, technicians, little ladies who walk you to your dressing room, and all sorts of new fangled medical machines that test every little inch of the body.

I�m still in the early stages of my �physical exam.� I�ve seen the doctor once for the initial exam. She ordered bloodwork (which I had done a couple of weeks ago), and consults with an ophthalmologist (done), an orthopedist (done), a bone densitometry scan (done), a mammogram (done) and on Monday next I have to have an MRI of my right knee � WHICH IS THE WHOLE REASON I WENT TO THE DOCTOR IN THE FIRST PLACE!

I am not looking forward to having that MRI.

They say you have to lie completely still for the whole time (only about 22 minutes she said for one knee). Granted, I don�t have to go all the way into the machine, since it�s just my knee� my head will be sticking out, but lying still is not something I do well. I have (so far undiagnosed) restless leg syndrome (at least that's what it feels like to me) and lying still while awake just doesn�t ever happen with me. My legs always have to be moving a little. We�ll see how this goes on Monday. The woman there said they will come and hold my hand if I want � if I get too nervous � but I think I�ll be a grown up about this and just take a few deep breaths, and try to do it alone. I type all the time that patients have MRIs left and right�and if THEY can do, then so can I (I think!).

If I ever need an MRI of my brain or head and neck � forget it. I hear you have to lie there perfectly still for an hour for that! Never in a million years!

Then, next Friday, I have a followup visit to see my primary care doctor again, and she will see all the results of my tests, give me the bad news, and that�s when I�ll start the lifestyle modifications that I type so often in my reports at work. I�m not looking forward to that one little bit. I don�t do change well. I like my routine - my old routine� no changes please!

There is one little test that I was given a consult slip for, a colonoscopy, that I have not had done yet. I figured � since I�ve been through the wringer these last few weeks already, I could put it off for a while. She may not be happy (my doc) but too bad. I�ll get to that eventually, but I need some breathing time between all this rigmarole and that type of invasive and possibly uncomfortable study. I need to get the rest of me fixed first, especially this darn knee. I did find out from the orthopedic doctor that I have a lot of arthritis in there� that was all he saw on my x-ray� so I�m hoping that�s all it is� even though that�s not so great to have, it beats some weird disease that I�d have to look up on the internet and teach myself all about.

I want my life back!

So that�s my latest update. Sorry it went on so long. That�s what happens when I don�t post a journal entry for weeks at a time.

Be good, and play nicely.

Cheers,

Bex

11:10 am - 26 August 2006

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