September 14, 2006

Doctors always ask the wrong questions

I had a nice little 2 hour expedition to the Orthopedic Doctor's office yesterday. I brought them the results of the MRI I had done last Friday and they told me what the plan of attack is going to be for fixing my broke-butt neck. As an aside, MRIs are one of the most heinous forms of torture medical proceedures that exist. It's like the Iron Maiden minus the spikes.

Anyway, my doctor was a little surprised that the MRI technician never told me the results of the MRI, and he explained to me that I do indeed have a herniated disk (C 5-6). I get to go to physical therapy for the next 4 weeks and also have injections of steriods directly into the affected part of my neck.

Which brings me to my point about doctors asking the wrong questions. He asked me "Are you OK with needles?" I honestly responded "Yes, they don't really bother me." The question he needed to ask was "Are you OK with needles in your neck?" Which, of course, I'm not. But it's a lot better than surgery.

Finally, my course of treatment has elicited all sorts of unwanted "advice" from my boss. First there are the stories about how "so-and-so had this proceedure done and it wasn't so bad" to stories about "PT is useless." There's also the "you don't need all those drugs, just Motrin will suffice." And my favorites: "You should use the PT in the same complex as our office," and "You need to schedule your PT appointments around when I want you at work -- it'll mean you have to take more sick and/or vacation time, but that's what I think you should do."

Everyone's a critic.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So are you ok with needles in your neck? :-) Have a good weekend!

AJ said...

Of course, I'm not OK with that. Sheez, with such friends, I so feel the love :-D