Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Crutches

The good news: The doctor didn't find anything obviously wrong with my knee.

The bad news: The doctor didn't find anything obviously wrong with my knee.

Things that happened at student health today:

(1) The receptionist knew my name (from how many times she's seen me in student health in the last year and a half) and offered to get me a wheelchair (as soon as she saw me limp into the room.)

(2) The nurse pushing my wheelchair to the exam room smashed my right leg - the one with the broken knee - right into a doorjamb while trying to back me into an exam room. That hurt. A lot.

(3) My doctor's first reaction when I told her what happened to my knee was to ask if I called my rheumatologist. This is probably not a good sign.

(4) I have to admit that I am quite good at dealing with pain (from lots of experience) and I am generally able to laugh and stay in good spirits no matter what (especially when APL is there with me). Unfortunately, I think this makes doctor's take me less seriously about how much pain I am in. Even though I told the doctor I was at a "10" on the stupid "1 to 10" scale, she still didn't seem to think I was suffering all that much.

(5) However, I did cry while the doctor examined my knee ligaments - bending and prodding and poking at my knee. It really hurt and all this pain is actually pretty scary. I'm still having trouble dealing with the fact that I was perfectly fine one minute and on the floor sobbing the next, with no warning whatsoever.

(6) The woman working in the radiology lab actually asked me if I worked at student health because my face looked so familiar. No joke. I guess I'm in there even more than I thought I am.

(7) They gave me a knee brace with joints and crutches. That way I can transfer some of the pain in my knee joint to pain in my already messed up finger joints. Truly awesome. I'm ditching class tomorrow so that I can see an orthopedist before we leave for the funeral on Thursday. Wish me luck.

(8) It took us 45 minutes to get my vicodin prescription filled at the pharmacy. By the time we left student health, we had been there for two hours and had been to pretty much every department in the whole building: reception, doctor exam room, nurse exam room, radiology lab, pharmacy, sports medicine...

(9) I just got off the phone with APL's mom to update her on what kind of shape I'll be in this weekend. Apparently APL's brother's girlfriend is on crutches too from ankle surgery. APL's mom said it didn't look very good that both of her sons' had girlfriends on crutches. This is, at least, amusing.

(10) Poor River is terrified of the crutches, whether they are moving or just leaning against a wall. She won't even walk past them. She keeps crying when they are in the same room with her.

1 comment:

Rebecca said...

We need a better word for "knee pain," like "bad," and "wrong." That's it, knee pain is "badong."

:(

Weirdly, my word verification suggests an alternative: reary mb, which I interpret to mean "reary motherfrackin' bad." Go with it.