Ouch, my leg! (the broken ankle blog)

Dr. McSurgery, whom I adore, was out of town with a family emergency on the day of my most recent follow-up appointment. His replacement was young, not as cute and certainly lacking in anything remotely resembling bedside manner. After a 2 ½ hour wait (yes, they’re busy, I understand), we were called into the clinic and assigned to a bed where we waited for 18 minutes while the replacement doctor transcribed notes into his telephone without acknowledging us. Now I can understand that if he were facing away, but we were literally sitting about two feet away from him. Not a good start.

When he finally called my name he brought up my x-rays, noted the bones had healed and asked me to remove my aircast boot. The time it took for me to do this was the longest period of time we spent interacting. He briefly fondled my leg (not really touching it, more of a soft petting), where he declared me healed and tried to herd me out the door. If this were a Southern Baptist Revival, I’d have paid my tithe, sung some gospel and headed outside for some barbecue. But the Heather who can hardly stand, let alone imagine walking wasn’t up for it. I called him out and said that my regular surgeon recommended I’d go in for physiotherapy, that he’d said it was a very bad break and I’d need several months of work before I’d be relatively back to normal. Together with my Mom (twin powers activate!) we gave him one of “those” stares reserved for misbehaving pets or when it’s discovered that Dad ate all the Ritz crackers again. It’s deadly.

Dr. McToogoodforpatients relented and gave me a prescription for physiotherapy with the comment of “Now that I’ve had a second look [Really? When you were looking at your shoes, or at the Nurse in the doorway?], I think you really will need more work, uh, let me get this prescription done.” We left shortly after, and I must note that I’ve never crutched faster in my life. Anger is an excellent motivator.

EDITED TO ADD: I hobbled into (ran into doesn’t really work under these circumstances) Dr. McSurgery at the airport this week while waiting for Dad’s flight. I told him I’d made a follow up appointment to see him after my bad experience with his replacement, and we spent about 10 minutes discussing my concerns. Yes, he agreed that I’d definitely need several months of physiotherapy, plus additional follow-up appointments. We talked about managing pain, controlling swelling and how to ease myself into going without the aircast some days. It was one of those great kismet moments, and I’ve never been happier to have to pick Dad up at the airport. Even if he has been known to eat all the crackers and then try to blame it on me (Yes, this actually happened).