A Day to Be Thankful

Graham has an interesting post up on a woman presenting with chronic pain and no other symptoms. She's also difficult:

She immediately says, “I’m not taking any drugs. I’m sick of trying drugs. My father was a pharmacist. I can look at any drug and tell just by it’s name that it’s going to have side effects. And that it’s not going to work.” She produces a list of drugs she’s taking, including amoxicillin, a pretty standard antibiotic, for an ear infection. She says that “all these give me side effects.” “Even the amoxicillin?” I inquire. “Yes, that one just gives me terrible side effects.” I ask her what the side effects are, and she says she “can’t even describe them.” My initial instict was to press her to try to find out what her side effects are, but I let it go.

My heart goes out to her, difficult as she sounds, because there was a time I thought I was sentenced with chronic pain for the rest of my life. Which brings me to an announcement that I need to make.

I am blessed with a difficult knee that likes to flare up, give me lots of pain and not respond well to anything but staying off of it. I had a few substandard orthopedic docs tell me in the last few years that nothing could really be done and it was just the grave I'd have to lie in.

I'm not entirely sure what changed in the few years between the "nothing can be done" docs to the recent round of "you need this surgery and it will really help you" docs, but apparently I can be fixed! I'll be admitted to the hospital Wendesday morning bright and early to undergo an osteotomy of my femur (you can read all about the procedure at WebMd's page here.) So I have good news and bad news:

Good News:

According to WebMD (and my surgeon): "If the amount of correction needed to align the knee is relatively small, osteotomy is successful in stabilizing the knee and relieving pain symptoms in about 90% of cases." That means I'll be coming out of this much better than I went in. My surgeon also told me I'll be able to do pretty much anything I want post surgery barring running marathons.

Bad News:

I will be in the hospital for three days. That means tomorrow is my last blogging day, and you will have to live without my special blogging abilities until next Monday. But fear not, a special guest will help me fill the blank space, so keep coming!

Good News:

I expect to have some excellent hospital stories to entertain you upon my return, followed by surgeon stories, physical therapy stories, and crutches stories. So if you haven't been coming by my blog often, it's time to up the frequency lest you miss my fabulous medical stories.

Bad News:

I won't be able to tell you those stories until I'm out of the hospital; morphine isn't really the best writing enhancer.

So, in sum: Go read Graham's post on the woman with chronic pain, I will be gone Wednesday through Friday but a special guest will provide content, the surgery will fix my pesky knee and I will have good stories. All in all, not a bad deal.

Comments

[Graham]

Wishing you well with "break a leg" I guess would be bad form. Good luck with the surgery, and please keep a notepad nearby, so you can jot down all your thoughts about what it's like being a patient. In a lot of ways, I think it's the best way that physicians can get feedback about how they interact.

Hope you recover swiftly, and that your chronic pain can be cured.

[Trapier K. Michael]

GOOD LUCK KATE!!!!!

PRAYERS AND WISHES...

[Mike]

equity real estate