Lesson I Learned on my Road to Knee Recovery or How I Listened to Well Meaning but Unqualified People and Fucked Up

A few weeks ago it was time for my yearly Well Woman’s exam.  For those out there who don’t know what this means, it’s a pap smear and breast exam.  Yeah, I bet that made the women reading this cross their legs a little tighter and put your arms over boobs.  The breast exam is general less painful unless you’re of that age when they do the mammogram, basically squeezing your boobs between cold metal plates until they nearly pop.  I haven’t had the pleasure as of yet but I hear it’s lovely.  

Anyway, I went for my annual exam and decided that it was time I had them take a serious look at my knee.  For the past year it’s been hurting to the point that I’ve given up all physical activity past walking from one room to the other and even then I try to avoid the journey.  Even though I’ve lost about five pounds this avoidance has also caused me to lose a lot of muscle strength and stamina.  So, it was time to get off the couch and find out what was wrong. 

After an initial look – and I mean the doctor literally just looked at my knee she didn’t prod or push at it, she just looked at it—she decided to send me to physical therapy.

I thought it was odd that she didn’t do more but I’m not a doctor so what do I know?  So, I set up my appointment with the therapist.  I get to work the next day and let my supervisor know what’s going on.  He promptly suggest that maybe I needed to get an MRI before I start doing exercises to fix something when we don’t know what that something is.  I was convinced and called my doctor to insist on the MRI.  She asked me if I was sure as it would be expensive and after I insisted she had the appointment scheduled which conflicted with my PT appointment.  I rescheduled the PT appointment for the following week.   

A few days later, I get to the MRI place fifteen minutes early to do paperwork and begin the waiting process and find that the appointment was cancelled.  My doctor’s office had called ten minutes before I got to the MRI place to cancel and left me a voicemail message.  So, I call them back and find out my insurance won’t cover an MRI until I get an X-ray and do physical therapy, stupid insurance and more importantly stupid me.  I tried to get my PT appointment scheduled back to the original date but it’s been taken by someone else with the sense to listen to an actually M.D. and not someone with a Ph.D.

After this ordeal I’ve learned a few new lessons when dealing with illness and medicine.  I’m sure there will be many more but here are the first few. 

Here’s your first lesson boys and girls, I know that some doctors are just trying to make a buck off of you but not all of them.  A lot are in the medical field for the right reasons.  My doctor happens to be one of those people.  And I let someone else convince me otherwise.

Second lesson, never let other people’s experiences cloud your experiences.  Up until that day I’d never thought my doctor was bad and I allowed my supervisor –someone I hardly know—convince me my doctor didn’t know what she was doing.  She has a license to practice medicine.  She knows what she’s doing.  Sure people have had bad experiences and they shouldn’t be miscounted but unless they’ve had a bad experience with your doctor you need to give your doctor the benefit of the doubt.    

Third, don’t doubt your physical therapist before you even get a chance to see him.  They have training that allows them to pinpoint problems without the use of x-rays and MRI’s.  And they can help you if you give them a chance. 

A subset to the third lesson, don’t doubt your PT if you have worked with him/her before.  My therapist, Marc and I know each other from seven years back when I had muscle spasms and he’d helped me.  After an initial exam he knew what was wrong with my knee – the knee cap isn’t lined up in the socket correctly—and knew what to do.

I know there are horror stories out there.  I’m sure that they are all legitimate but in my case it was my own meddling around that caused the most problems.  I still think the insurance company was full of shit BUT so was I for not listening to my doctor.  Looking back she was obviously indulging me, allowing me to spend money when I didn’t need to.  I was lucky the insurance company wouldn’t pay because my co-pay on an MRI is insanely high and I can just imagine what full price is.  If you and your doctor have known each other for some time (as I do) then you need to trust the person.  If the doctor is new then a second opinion is understandable and the doctor probably expects it even if it’s not spoken of.  However, when you go for that second opinion make sure it’s from someone who is actually an M.D. and not a co-worker who doesn’t really know what the fuck he/she is talking about.