Medical update

Because I know some of you are wondering. This isn't about insurance, but about my actual medical problem.

For those of you coming in late, last July my car went off the freeway at about 65 mph (I had swerved to avoid a vehicle that had swerved into my lane, and lost control), flipped over, hit the roof, flipped again, and landed right side up in a bunch of bushes so far off the freeway I couldn't see it from where I was. I had to climb out the rear window because the doors wouldn't open. Exactly one month later, I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain in my back, and it got a bit better but never went away since.

At my last visit to Dr. C., the one where he kept me waiting for an hour while I read the appalling Shutterbabe, he suggested that since I have a flexible work schedule and I'm a tough case, if I was willing to make the drive he wanted to send me to a new physical therapist, who he said was the absolute best he knew of within driving distance of LA, a guy in Laguna Niguel (an hour drive each way-- if there's no traffic.) I said sure. So yesterday I went to the third physical therapy place I've been to this past year, in Laguna Niguel.

The miracle worker, B., gave me the most thorough work-up I've had so far-- tested for unhealed fractures, neurological damage, grip strength (40 lbs left hand, 56 right, which is normal since I'm right-handed), took out a thing that looked like it belonged in a high school geometry class and measured the angles at which I could turn my neck. Like the second physical therapist, the one who left to give birth, he said that my T-8 through T-11 vertebrae were locked together and that there was abnormal muscle development and tension in various parts of my back; unlike anyone else I've seen so far, he also said my shoulders were uneven, some of my ribs were slightly displaced, and my left hip was so displaced that my left leg was slightly shorter than my right, in a way which, he said, was definitely not something I was born with but had been caused by trauma.

Like Dr. C, he said that this and my imaging results suggested that the problems were all mechanical and soft tissue, and needed physical therapy and manipulation rather than surgery. B.'s theory on what actually happened was that in addition to being slammed all over the car during the roll over, when I landed my ribcage hit the side of the car hard enough to knock the vertebrae they were connected to out of place. One year of missed diagnoses and stonewalling from Blue Shield later, everything's still out of place and other parts of the body are compensating in unhealthy ways.

B. informed me that he was going to do really painful things to me and that most of his patients hated him at the beginning, but that he wasn't going to do anything that would actually be bad for me. He added that one of his patients was a karate champion in the sixteen-and-under division, and that he was getting her back in shape to compete in the championships, and that his goal for me was going to be able to get me back into karate. (I was tempted to make a crack about championships along the lines of "Doc, will I be able to play the piano," but refrained.) I told him to go ahead and do whatever he thought would work.

He proceeded to knead and pull me every which way, and yes, it was painful, but not that painful. After the fifteenth time I said, "No, I'm OK," he said, sounding slightly disappointed, that he wasn't going too hard on me on the first visit. I am torn between thinking that his bedside manner needs improvement because it must be alarming for people who aren't me, and that if he mostly treats athletes, even non-champion amateurs like me, it probably is a pleasant reminder of some drill sergeant coach or sensei.

Anyway, I'm out of karate and with B. for the next six weeks, but have been cleared to go swimming as long as I avoid the breast stroke and butterfly. Since I never formally learned to swim, avoiding the butterfly will not be a problem. I plan to find a YMCA that offers classes for adult beginnings, preferably on days when I'm not going to Laguna Niguel.

Medical update

Because I know some of you are wondering. This isn't about insurance, but about my actual medical problem.

For those of you coming in late, last July my car went off the freeway at about 65 mph (I had swerved to avoid a vehicle that had swerved into my lane, and lost control), flipped over, hit the roof, flipped again, and landed right side up in a bunch of bushes so far off the freeway I couldn't see it from where I was. I had to climb out the rear window because the doors wouldn't open. Exactly one month later, I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain in my back, and it got a bit better but never went away since.

At my last visit to Dr. C., the one where he kept me waiting for an hour while I read the appalling Shutterbabe, he suggested that since I have a flexible work schedule and I'm a tough case, if I was willing to make the drive he wanted to send me to a new physical therapist, who he said was the absolute best he knew of within driving distance of LA, a guy in Laguna Niguel (an hour drive each way-- if there's no traffic.) I said sure. So yesterday I went to the third physical therapy place I've been to this past year, in Laguna Niguel.

The miracle worker, B., gave me the most thorough work-up I've had so far-- tested for unhealed fractures, neurological damage, grip strength (40 lbs left hand, 56 right, which is normal since I'm right-handed), took out a thing that looked like it belonged in a high school geometry class and measured the angles at which I could turn my neck. Like the second physical therapist, the one who left to give birth, he said that my T-8 through T-11 vertebrae were locked together and that there was abnormal muscle development and tension in various parts of my back; unlike anyone else I've seen so far, he also said my shoulders were uneven, some of my ribs were slightly displaced, and my left hip was so displaced that my left leg was slightly shorter than my right, in a way which, he said, was definitely not something I was born with but had been caused by trauma.

Like Dr. C, he said that this and my imaging results suggested that the problems were all mechanical and soft tissue, and needed physical therapy and manipulation rather than surgery. B.'s theory on what actually happened was that in addition to being slammed all over the car during the roll over, when I landed my ribcage hit the side of the car hard enough to knock the vertebrae they were connected to out of place. One year of missed diagnoses and stonewalling from Blue Shield later, everything's still out of place and other parts of the body are compensating in unhealthy ways.

B. informed me that he was going to do really painful things to me and that most of his patients hated him at the beginning, but that he wasn't going to do anything that would actually be bad for me. He added that one of his patients was a karate champion in the sixteen-and-under division, and that he was getting her back in shape to compete in the championships, and that his goal for me was going to be able to get me back into karate. (I was tempted to make a crack about championships along the lines of "Doc, will I be able to play the piano," but refrained.) I told him to go ahead and do whatever he thought would work.

He proceeded to knead and pull me every which way, and yes, it was painful, but not that painful. After the fifteenth time I said, "No, I'm OK," he said, sounding slightly disappointed, that he wasn't going too hard on me on the first visit. I am torn between thinking that his bedside manner needs improvement because it must be alarming for people who aren't me, and that if he mostly treats athletes, even non-champion amateurs like me, it probably is a pleasant reminder of some drill sergeant coach or sensei.

Anyway, I'm out of karate and with B. for the next six weeks, but have been cleared to go swimming as long as I avoid the breast stroke and butterfly. Since I never formally learned to swim, avoiding the butterfly will not be a problem. I plan to find a YMCA that offers classes for adult beginnings, preferably on days when I'm not going to Laguna Niguel.