Unremarkable, for $1000

I think based on past posts it has been made clear just how I feel about doctors.

I love them.  I really, really love them.  With all of my heart.  And I trust them implicitly.  And sometimes, I lie.

The truth is I don't like doctors, hospitals, or anything related to medicine, and I make my husband Paul surprisingly irritated every time I talk about it.

But what can a person expect?  I mean, is it my fault that I'm always the person who has highly unusual experiences that professionals can't seem to diagnose?  Like the virus a couple years ago that bewildered Instacare and a dentist finally solved by pulling out his college textbook?

Yeah, that was awesome.

Really, I am certain that the medical professionals who attend to me are much more competent than my atypical cases make them appear.

So, in keeping with my history of strange incidents (having metal drilled out of my eye, having a jawbone that grew too long on one side, the second worst orthodontic case Dr. Haymore had seen second to the girl with no front teeth, a virus that leveled me, two root canals following a history of perfect dental health), life--seeming to know my love for storytelling--continues to provide me with more than my fair share of these "experiences," and this year has been no exception.  My knee must have decided that life was getting a little too boring and it was time to spice things up.

It's shocking how spicy one little knee can turn out to be.

I will give you a somewhat brief synopsis of the last year-and-a-half of my life.  And by brief, I mean it will only be slightly better than living through the entire 16 months yourself.

It all began last August.  Paul decided to surprise me and take me on a hike to Timpanogos Cave for my birthday, which should have been a great idea.  Unfortunately, it wasn't.  Soon after the hike, my knee began to swell up.
Really swell up.
People at work began to become concerned.  ("Do you need…a rolley chair to push yourself around?"   "Have you been to a doctor?"  "Should I call a doctor?")

I, however, was convinced that medical intervention would do nothing for me.  Everything I knew, had read, and had discussed with people who actually knew about knees told me that unless I had torn or broken something (which I was quite certain I hadn't), there was nothing I could do but RICE it (rest, ice, compression, elevation) and give it time.  Which I did.  Four whole months worth of time.

Finally, when my sister started telling me around Thanksgiving that it looked like rising bread dough and that it wasn't normal (Can't you just hear her?  "Uh….I don't think that's normal….") I decided it may be time to seek help.

This pretty well sums it up.

I went in to a well-known knee doctor who took an X-ray, told me to never do any physical activity again, and then mercilessly drained my knee and injected it with cortisone using a needle that felt like it could be related to the Seattle Space Needle.  The whole time the doctor talked about how December was the "Black Friday" of knees and he'd done over 20 injections just that day, as though this were the most normal thing in the world.

Although he was somewhat concerned his "bandaid approach" wouldn't work for long and he'd be seeing me again, I, in Pollyanna-like fashion, crossed my fingers, hobbled out of his office, and resumed life--now with a medical excuse for my lack of exercise (Which, frankly made me much less guilt-ridden about my sloth-like lifestyle).

And so, life moved on a things went fairly well…
Until this October.

Paul and I went to a Pumpkin Walk here in Logan near Halloween for one of our dates.

Note the key word "Walk" in "Pumpkin Walk."
Yes, folks, we took a nice autumn stroll, admiring pumpkins, squash, and zucchinis that created delightful characters and scenes, but in the days following--before I could say "Happy Halloween" to 113 Elsas--my knee had swollen again.

My old co-workers should be happy to note that this time I did not wait four months before going in. I found a new doctor (And by that, I mean Paul found a doctor, made me an appointment and let me know when I'd be going, because really--of the two of us, he makes a much better adult) and within days I was back on an examining table, puffy knee ready to be drained.

I felt a bit of deja vu as fluid was removed, cortisone was injected, and I was on my way.

Don't be deceived, however, at how simple and easy I make it sound.  When the doctor told the PA, "Could you grab me an 8?"as though it were no big deal, I should have run.  One-legged.

Perhaps the medical community is simply trying to pacify wimps like me and had me in mind when they created their needle numbering system.  You see,  the larger a needle is, the smaller its number is.  Diabetics use needles in the 30's.  When they put an IV in my hand, that needle was a 20.

So when the doctor leans over and says, "Could you grab me an 8?" as nonchalantly as he orders a burger and fries, what he really means to say is, "You see that sharp PVC pipe over there?  Grab that for me, would you?  Yeah, we're definitely going to want one of the largest needles available for human use to drain this knee here."

This, my friends, is a 20.

Do you know how large the largest needle used on humans is?  A six.  That's right.  SIX.  And they used an eight.

It wouldn't have been so concerning except for the high school girl who was shadowing my doctor.  The look on her face told me things couldn't be good.

While draining the knee, the doctor informed me that perhaps my knee cap was crooked and some physical therapy would get it back into place, solving whatever was wrong with my mysteriously problematic patella.

A few days later, I spent 90 minutes being shocked, iced, stretched, and massaged.

When I woke up the next morning, my knee was the size of Rhode Island.  

I'm starting to see why they were thinking my knee cap was in the wrong spot...

So, I spent all of Thanksgiving break on my parents' couch--except when I would get out of the house via the neighbor's crutches and then (once we got to a store) would make it to a wheelchair or one of those really awesome Jazzy-type scooters they advertise during every commercial break of The Price is Right.  I am so glad I ran into someone from my graduating class while driving it.  I've come a long way in eleven years.

That's right--From high school senior to senior citizen in just 11 years.
I've always been a bit of an over-achiever.  

If I'd known the driver was included,
I would've gotten a wheelchair years ago!

Eventually, Thanksgiving break ended and I went back to the doctor.  He had only one thing to say: MRI.

I had only one thing I heard: One thousand dollars.

Bless you, high deductible insurance plan.  Bless you.

And so I debated. Should I have it done?  Or should I just buy a Jazzy scooter and live out the rest of my life in peace?

It was a tough call.  The Jazzy was pretty amazing.

My biggest fear was that they would do the MRI and find nothing, leaving me without money or answers.

"That is highly unlikely," Paul told me over and over.  "You can barely move.  Your knee is huge.  It will definitely show something."

So, I got an MRI.

It was a strange experience to be lying in a tube that made noises like a rocket ship preparing for take-off while in the background Karen Carpenter's voice calmly crooned, "Merry Christmas Darling…"into the headphones they'd provided.

Don't worry--Just preparing for my future flight to outer space.

An MRI is not painful.  It's not scary.  It's just terribly nerve wracking because right before going in, a nice medical person will say something like, "Now remember, this is an extremely sensitive machine and any movement will cause the images to be blurry."

So all I could think of for twenty minutes--every time I itched or needed to sneeze or got terribly uncomfortable--were blurry pictures of ancient ancestors and Abraham Lincoln on a Civil War battlefield who had clearly missed the memo about staying still, and how much it would cost if my MRI was blurry and had to be redone.

Needless to say, I stayed perfectly still.

Upon reflection, I think had I been buried alive (which likely would have felt similar to an MRI) I would have at least been allowed to sneeze.

After the MRI, I was desperate to know what was wrong with me.  (Or at least what was wrong with my knee….)  When I got to the doctor's office the next week, the woman reading the report pulled out a white sheet of paper, scanned it and declared, "Well, it looks…completely unremarkable."

Unremarkable?

UNREMARKABLE?!
There are few things in the world worse than paying $1,000 to find out you are completely and utterly unremarkable.
I have a list of people who willingly would have told me that for free!

My meniscus was fine.  My ACL was fine.  My cartilage was fine.
Yet somehow, I was clearly not fine.

I had two options:
1. Be a gimp for the rest of my life
2. Get a scope and hope they could find and fix something.

I called my old doctor to get a second opinion.  He was out of town for over a week, but his nurse said the note he'd made on my chart said he was afraid my knee was severely deranged.

From unremarkable to deranged in the same week?  No wonder I couldn't trust doctors!

What was I to do?

Life is full of tough decisions.  I decided on Thursday to go with the scope.

Unfortunately, this picture was PRE-drugs.
Clearly, I am not unremarkable...

By Monday, I was lying on an operating table fading away as anesthesia coursed through my body.

My next conscious memory was repeating to Paul over and over, "I'm doing great!  I even told the doctor 'Merry Christmas.'  How long was my surgery?  Oh, an hour?  I feel so much better than the last time I went under.  I'm so with it.  I even told the doctor 'Merry Christmas.'  Was my surgery thirty minutes?  No?  An hour?  Oh.  Did I tell you I told the doctor 'Merry Christmas'?  Do you know how long I was in surgery?"

"Merry Christmas!"

During the hour-long surgery, it was discovered that I have a tissue disease which makes my tissue grow too much.  The tissue in my left knee grew delightful little "fingers" that snuck into places they shouldn't have been.  The photos they gave me (as a fabulous souvenir, I assume) make my knee look like an underwater adventure teeming with coral.  Coral, that--of course--had to be sliced, drilled, and vacuumed away (At least that's how the 37 seconds of the video of my surgery that I actually stomached watching made it look).

So, the good news is, I will not have to pay $10,000 to continue my life as "Unremarkable."  I may have been "Unremarkable" for $1,000, but for only $9,000 more, I have moved up in the ranks to "Unusual" and "Uncommon."

I'll take it.

That's what I'm going for here: Not bigger, just better.
Once I start exercising again, that is.  

I'll also take the punch card I was pushing for in the doctor's office.  You know?  Tenth visit free? Buy-one-get-one-free physical therapy? Or at least a surgery t-shirt that says "I Survived."  Because so far, all I've gotten are a DVD of the surgery, a Dove chocolate bar, and a bottle of Lortab that helped me set a new personal-best record for number of times I've thrown up in one day.  (Word to the Wise: "Norco" is code for "Another horrible form of Lortab."  When they ask how your pain is after one pill, don't say five.  Five will only get you more nausea-inducing drugs.)

I had a hard time taking them seriously
when all I could think of was Brian Regan.

So, if you see me hobbling on crutches sometime during the next few weeks, don't feel bad for me.  I hobble with pride.  I am part an elite group of people with freakish knee tissue--which is infinitely more interesting than "Unremarkable."

Happy Holidays!
God bless us, everyone.

Me?  I'm playing Tiny Tim
for Christmas this year.