Here's Just How to Do It, Doc!

So the new, blessed, human, attentive Doctor comes into the room to give me the results of the X-rays, MRIs etc. on the non-functioning right knee. Well, to be correct, the now somewhat functional, limp short distances, pain there but under control, knee - thanks to what he has already prescribed.

And here is what he said. "You", he said, with a smile emphasizing the 'you', "You have a most impressive amount of intense severe arthritic degeneration in this knee."

He went on to point out that my ostephytes (bony bumps your bone grows trying to compensate for the pain by making more bone to help out), usually small bumps or the size maybe of a fingertip, are actually in some places the size of a whole half a finger to the middle knuckle, especially behind my knee, where the most pain is, and inside my knee-cap (patella), making my knee-cap resemble an Iron Maiden. Let alone the tear in the anterior cruciate ligament, and the resulting crumple in the posterior cruciate ligament.

Now that's the way to deliver the news Doc. With a smile, eye contact, why even though I have a condition f#$% all can be done about, I left that office proud and with a spring in my limp.

Gotta love a doc who can do that!

Miracles of Modern Science? Maybe ...

What a day ... One of my favorite columnists when I lived in Holland (and was speaking and reading only Dutch) was Simon Carmiggelt. And one of the things he said, which I giggled at without understanding at the time, being only in my 30's, was "You know you're getting old when, instead of meeting your friends at the pub, you meet them waiting at the pharmacist".

Ah yes, or at the doctor's. This week is medical week for both my husband and myself -- today involving his MRI of his head (ouch) and mine of my knee (also ouch, the way things have been lately).

Now we await a call from the doctor for him, and a revisit to the doctor for me next week. Mammogram on Friday, oh frabjous day, callou, callay. I go to the soft mammo place, that uses padding, but you know what, it still hurts!

Meanwhile, new arthritis doc appears to be a peach, a real person, would you believe! And his new pain meds, so far, have got me almost mobile and no longer whimpering! Pain at the moment, but nothing to what it's been. Can this glory last?

Last time I had an MRI, on the other knee, the following morning the whole thing had blown up three times its size, bright red, turning purple over the next few days, about three weeks of yuck. One Australian doctor believes this happens to magnetically sensitive people.

Now I've heard of being charismatic. But magnetically sensitive? Turns out that means, what I've always been able to do since I was a child, and was an adult of 50 before I learned that everyone couldn't, namely, pick up a piece of metal and tell you immediately if it is a magnet. I mean, I just feel it, there in my hand. It's a magnet. Amazes me not everyone can. Hmmm.

Let you know tomorrow how this MRI went!