Ray and I very rarely go to the doctor’s. We stay (knock on wood) pretty healthy, but
occasionally we will get things that have to be checked out. He had pink eye last year and a spider bite a
few years ago (super scary and ugly what it did to his hand before getting on
the meds), and I go diligently for my yearly exams as well as eye exams. However last year, while on vacation in
Sweden of all places, I fell on my knee.
I didn’t dare break my fall on those 500 year old steps of the City Hall
building in Stortget (Malmo) by dropping by camera or my purse! Instead, I chose to just land on my knee and
let my knee take the all the trauma. And
since I fell going UP the five steps, Ray was where he was supposed to
be—behind me in case I fell backwards!
Besides the huge
yellow, green, and purple bruise that went down my shin bone, I didn’t think
anything of the fall until I felt a “bony protuberance” about a month
later. I chose to have a physician at
Patient First look at the lump and x-ray it there. Patient First is open 365 days a year and is
a one stop shop for exams and x-rays.
His call was that the x-ray looked fine but “you should see an
orthopedist”. Two doctor appointments down
and I was pretty much told “if you want a name put on it, have an MRI”. No thanks.
That would be another doctor’s appt, another co-pay, and more time in a
waiting room. So I left it alone for a
year. I would rub it every so often
thinking I could just break it up some. Then I decided to really wash my floors on my
hands and knees (yes, I have done this within a year!) and noticed a nagging
ache in my knee. It lasted all day and
into the night. Like an old sports
injury of which I never played any sports!
So back to the orthopedist I went.
I didn’t like thinking “is it really scar tissue—it seems super bony to
be scar tissue”. I mean I did learn
something about bone formation in dental hygiene school but that was 27 years
ago! So maybe I do want to put a name on
it. And perhaps relearn what I had been taught
about osteoclasts and osteoblasts (okay, perhaps not). The other reason this lump was now weighing
on my mind was that I had just read an
article in the paper about an adolescent boy (both of which I am not) that had
cancer of the knee joint, so now I knew I was doomed.
Back to the orthopedist I go. Forty minutes in the waiting room, Nurse Abby then took my vitals, fifteen or
longer minutes in the closed operatory (I read an entire Family Circle magazine
from November, 2011), five minutes with the orthopedist to look at my one year
old x-ray and have him request new x-rays, ten minutes or longer waiting for
the x-ray tech to get me from the closed room (I had moved on to another
magazine), x-rays taken and another ten minutes or so waiting for doctor to
show again to fortunately tell me that
it all looked good. Basically, from the
trauma I had a microscopic fracture of the bone and because of that fracture
more bone formed—so I will always have this bony protuberance.
I do feel better
knowing why I have a lump. I just wish the Physician Assistant last year at
the Orthopedist office had explained this to me and not told me to get an MRI
(which is good for soft tissue, not bone) for a name to be put on it. But what I really loved about getting this
explanation was the one hour and forty five minute appointment that I had (and
$60 in co-pays for the three visits not to mention what the x-rays will cost
since I have to meet a $250 deductible) to see a doctor for perhaps seven
minutes J
When I get to Panama (still thinking it’s going to happen!),
I hope that IF I have to go to the doctor or when I go for my yearly exams,
they are quick and efficient and cheap like I keep reading about on everyone’s
blogs! And maybe I will even be privey
to more than seven minutes of time.
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