Bad Doctor..Good Doctor.

     

     As you can see, last month my knee objected to the soccer game the rest of my body was enjoying. I was still walking after the game and I went on in to work for my night shift. It was not until I could not walk out to my car after the shift that I decided I better get my knee looked at by a doctor. My wife had noticed that one of the big ortho places on the south side of Indy had a walk in clinic. So I limped in Monday morning. The staff was very professional and I was taken to an exam room in reasonable time. Then things went down hill. After a while the ortho doc (We will call him Dr. O.) came in, looked at my knee, asked what happened then proceeds to ignore my response, then orders an X-ray and leaves. He spent about 2 minutes doing this. After the X-ray came in Dr. O graced me again with his presence for another minute to let me know nothing was broken and that I needed to schedule a MRI. So I limped to the checkout desk and they said the MRI would be the following day and my follow on with Dr. O the day after that. I limped away. Fast forward to my follow-up and Dr. O came in, handed me a sheet of paper that among other things had "disruption of the ACL" typed on it. Dr. O said I had torn my ACL and surgery would be required to fix it. He mentioned that some people choose not to have it repaired and just live with the limitation of the knee collapsing whenever it feels like it. I asked if it was a total tear and Dr. O responded with arrogance , "yes, that is what disruption means". Well excuse me for the stupid question. Since I was on a roll I attempted a few more questions. They were met with the same attitude, that  I was wasting his precious time.  He instructed me to make arrangements for my surgery, and was gone. The total consultation with him lasted around 10 minutes. He also could not remember me from just two days prior and I of course consider myself pretty memorable. So once again I limped out on crutches consigned to having surgery....At the darkest is when things always begin to brighten up.

     My wife convinced me to get a second opinion from the orthopedic doctor that has put my kids back together after they challenge the laws of physics and loose. "Dr. M." is not part of a big fancy ortho group and practices right here in our small town. I bring a copy of the MRI and hand it to Dr M. who loads it up on the PC. While that is going on Dr M does a few things that Dr O did not, first he listens, then he actually examines my knee, he moves it, checks how loose it is and finds out exactly where it is hurting, shocking!! Dr M then turns to the MRI and goes through it with me explaining what he is looking at. This takes about 30 minutes. Conclusion; I did tear my ACL but only partially and what is left should be enough to keep me in the game of keeping up with my kids. He says that physical therapy is the proper course, not surgery. Weeks later he seems to be right.

     Why did Dr. O apparently misdiagnose me? A combination of factors including working in a place that is more factory than doctors clinic, he is arrogant, he might not of actually looked at my MRI just taking the radiologist opinion of the films and finally, forgetting the basics of patient/doctor relations. Sadly more doctors are like Dr. O than Dr M. Be careful and keep getting opinions till you are convince that the right course is taken. Use the Internet and do some research and ask all the questions before getting cut. Peace and embrace chaos, even if you are limping.

    

: "We can't die, mom is not here!"

There are times when the full weight of parenthood has fallen on my shoulders. Luckily these have been few since they show how incompetent I am. We were living outside of Boulder when my wife's grandfather died. We decided that she would fly back home to Indiana alone since four of our six children were in school and child number six was a new born. Also traveling with that many children is, shall we say, slightly stressful. We made her flight arrangements for the following nights red eye. After an emotional farewell at the airport where the youngest kids could not grasp that mommy was only leaving for a few days I managed to load them all back into the trusty 1976 Suburban at a little after midnight. The airport was about an hours drive for us and about 30 minutes into the return trip the trusty old burb is not sounding so trusty. I get off the freeway and start heading through the back roads hoping to nurse the burb back home. No such luck, the drive shaft decides to go on strike and fall out of the truck with a loud thump that fully wakes all the kids. The roads we are on are fairly rural and pretty desolate at that time of the night. As we come to a stop my eldest, 12 at the time, looks around and says "Great, we will probably die out here before someone comes by" The others all start yelling and crying expecting death. Out of the chaos my boy yells "We can't die, mom is not here!" Evidently dad is not fully trusted to handle much. Embrace the chaos.

Two Parking spots, jerk move?

Just had a conversation with a co-worker who was trying to justify taking up two parking spots with his vehicle. Is this always a jerk move?  He argues that he is tired of having his car damaged by people who slam their car doors into his car. But come on, who is not. This unfortunate event has happened to all of us. What makes anyone or their car more special than the rest of us? And as many of us with small children know you can try to instruct them till you are blue in the face, they will still whip the car door open before you can stop them. Sometimes the wind catches the door and surprises you and, damn a dent. Now, this does not mean that you are not responsible and need to make the situation right ( Yeah I know most scum will not.). None of this means that you have the right to two parking spaces thus becoming the biggest jerk of the parking lot. There is a reason most people get peeved when they see someone taking two or more spots, it's wrong. I find parking as close to their vehicle regardless an amusing solution. But then again I do not mind escalating a confrontation. Heck some one has to teach them proper parking etiquette. Remember embrace the chaos.