Broken Bones and Medicine in Howard County

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season and spent time with their loved ones. I definitely did, what with spending time with all my brothers and actually getting out to play Lazer Tag, which kind of shows you never really grow up if you don’t want to. It was as close to paradise as I think I’ve gotten in a long time.

I’m back in Iowa, though, and I have an appointment set up with the Mayo Clinic in early February to take a look at my poor left foot, which is still in an air cast two months after it had been broken. The usual time it takes a broken foot to heal is eight to ten weeks, according to my kendo sensei, who has dealt with broken bones before. The ten week mark has come and gone, and it will be a good three weeks before I get to see the doctor at the Mayo Clinic. I’ve almost gotten used to this stupid cast, but there are still times, like if I’m trying to climb stairs, that it’s particularly frustrating. What makes it more frustrating is that the doctor’s office here in Cresco has, after years of being quite reliable, decided to turn into a Kafkaesque nightmare.

I suppose it started with the doctor I went in to see being very sure I had just sprained my foot. Just in case, though, I should get an X-ray. This isn’t exactly unknown—when I broke my leg in sixth grade the doctor was sure I’d sprained my leg until the X-ray showed a crack through both the tibia and fibula. And I would have bet money against a broken bone this time. Still, she gave me and air cast, and said I might want to think about going to a podiatrist.

The past couple of times I’ve gone in to get my foot checked, though, the diagnosis has been reversed. On the first follow-up visit, the doctor didn’t think I was healing at all, and that I should probably go to Decorah to see a podiatrist. Two days later, I got a call from the doctor’s office, where the doctor’s nurse told me that a radiologist looked at my X-rays and said that actually, my foot was healing up nicely (but wouldn’t I like to see a podiatrist anyway?).

The next trip in, the doctor said I was healing up nicely and actually gave me a boot that would give me more mobility than the air cast. Two days later, her nurse called and let me know that actually, the radiologist hadn’t seen any significant healing and I might want to think about scheduling an appointment with a podiatrist.

A couple of things have bothered me about this series of events. First, why not tell me to visit a podiatrist? It’s like they keep trying to upsell me doctor-wise, but they don’t tell me why. Just that a podiatrist might have a better idea of what’s going on. It’s my choice, though. This is what the doctor has told me over and over again, as though she were selling me on the idea of going to see a podiatrist instead of saying I need to, although to be fair she’s now said I need to because there hasn’t been any healing, which of course comes after she said I was healing. Oh, and if my foot does need some more care, then why not send me to, say, an orthopedic surgeon? Someone who can determine if I need surgery or not?

This is why I am more than happy to switch doctors. I am taking advantage of the fact that I live an hour away from one of the best medical clinics in the world and going to them. While a copywriter who lives in the middle of nowhere with a broken foot is a far cry from the prestige of treating the king of a foreign country with a wasting disease, I will have the privilege and the comfort of knowing some of the best doctors in the world will be examining me. I want a straight answer and good advice more than anything else right now.

I apologize that this is kind of an introspective blog, with a lot more complaining about the doctors in the area than actually talking about the neat things I’ve encountered in Iowa. Doctors screwing up is not restricted to northeast Iowa. It’s not limited to small towns, for that matter. Still, getting out of this cast is a pretty important part of my life right now. I promise I’ll come back next week with something neat about the northeast Iowa region.

Cast of One

I’m sitting here again, with one leg resting comfortably on my bed and the other providing some support for the floor, and I’m starting to go a little stir-crazy. Oh, and the foot that’s on the bed is also wrapped in an air cast.

A little over two weeks ago, I went to a martial arts tournament in Chicago. I had an immense amount of fun there and finally, after the third try, passed my promotion exam. The only thing was that when I landed on my foot while backing up, I rolled my foot. According to my sensei, he could hear the pop from the center of the small gym to the wall. I knew I’d messed up something in my foot, but I was pretty sure it was just twisted. At worst, it was a sprain. Nevertheless, it hurt. It hurt enough that I kept my foot elevated for two weeks afterward, took lots of ibuprofen (but well within the safety range), and in general tried to get back to normal life, which was an abject failure. My foot kept hurting, and it wasn’t getting any better. Finally, I bit the bullet and decided to go to the doctor’s office. Yes, it’d cost money that I thought could be put to better use elsewhere, and yes, other people had said it was probably a sprain and that I was treating it well anyway. Still, at this point better safe than sorry.

The doctor was quite nice about the whole thing. She agreed it was probably just a sprain, and that just to be safe, I should get some x-ray pictures taken. Just to be safe, you understand. I’d go home afterwards and she’d let me know the results.  So I limped down the corridor to the x-ray department, where a tech put me up on a table, covered all of me except my foot with a lead apron, and took some shots while I reflected that lying on a table in an x-ray room is one of the loneliest spots on the world. No one else can be with you. It’s just you and the camera, and you’re waiting for the doctor to say what’s wrong with you.

Finally, the x-ray technician came back with a serious look on her face. “We need to go back to the doctor’s office,” she said.

               

“Why?” I said.

               

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “But we need to go back to the doctor’s office.”

Now, I’m sure there are rules for why the technician can and cannot tell me certain things. However, I can tell you I was nervous about the results the whole way back, up to the point the doctor showed me the x-ray of my foot, where the fifth metatarsal had snapped in two.

So I’m wearing a cast now for the next couple of weeks. It’s a walking cast, so I can move about in it, mostly, but it is not an easy, particularly when I’m in my apartment. See, the cast has a flat sole on it designed to keep my foot stable. This sole is also pretty thick, so it’s almost unnoticeable when I’m outside. When I’m at home, though, I take off my shoes, and I suddenly realize just what kind of difference a half-inch makes. My first few steps without a shoe on my other foot resemble an epileptic yak recovering from a hangover, only without the grace.

Then there’s the fun of trying to sleep. I usually sleep lying down, which means my left foot is snugly beneath the covers. Trying to shift a cast beneath the covers isn’t futile, but it’s almost not worth the effort with the resulting tangle it creates.

Finally, though, there’s trying to drive a stick shift in an air cast, with your ankle locked at 90 degrees. I gave up the first few times I tried it, but finally I’ve learned how to shift with the cast on. There’s a certain type of victory in relearning how to do things after you’ve been injured, and it is one of the best feelings in the world.

The big thing about wearing an air cast, though, is that it is a guaranteed conversation starter. It’s a sign you’ve been injured, that the injury is going to take a while to heal, and there seems to be a universal truth that any visible injury probably has a good story behind it. Whether or not you want to talk about it, though, is a different story in and of itself.

Still, for now my foot is getting better, which is a definite change from the “hurting so much at the end of the workday I wanted to scream or cry” phase, and hopefully I won’t have to have this cast on too awfully long. Before Thanksgiving would be wonderful, and I’ll let you all know if that happens!