3 - Expectations

My surgeon had the X-rays of my left leg up on the wall and was explaining to me, “see, here is one part of your Patella and look down here, there’s the other part!” I was so glad he found it. I didn’t want to start rooting around down there for lost bone fragments. My confidence in this doctor was jacking up by the minute.

My injury occurred Sunday, I was talking to the doctor on Monday and would be in surgery on Friday. I had no idea how long the next four days would be or how much worse the post surgery pain would be than those days preceding surgery. But, in the meantime, I wanted to know what my future would hold since I had some plans that definitely included bringing my knee along.

I told the doctor that I didn’t have much paid time off coming to me and short term disability only pays 60% of my salary so I was eager to get back to work in about two weeks. He should have laughed hysterically and, to better make his point, he should have rolled around on the floor and guffawed. But, I guess he is the kind of guy who doesn’t like to “dash one’s hopes” so he said that going back to work within two weeks was within the range of possibility. He then told me about a fellow orthopedic surgeon who had his Patella surgically repaired and was back doing surgery on others within two weeks. I was impressed and motivated. I too wanted to do surgery on others.

Much later in my rehab, my doctor told me the rest of the story about his fellow surgeon. Yes, he was back at work in two weeks only in the sense that he was resting and icing his knee up until the point where he hobbled into the operating room, performed his surgery in 1.5 hours and then had to lie down, elevate the leg, ice his knee and rest. Kind of what I was doing at home except I was allowed to take pain meds. And in fact, the doctor’s knee started to tighten up while keeping up this schedule, rehabilitation slowed to a crawl, so to speak, and some adjustments in his scherdule had to be made. Basically he managed to cut the surgery time down to ten minutes per patient without increasing his mortality rate more than 10% - well within the state surgical guidelines. I was disgusted with my doctor’s slow revelation of the “real” story and immediately cancelled my medical degree correspondence course. I thought the doctors were gods but really, they are a bunch of guys who feel pain like the rest of us.

My next question for the doc was about my prognosis further into the future. I had a backpacking trip planned for April first – three months down the pike - and I wanted to know if this was absurd or could I still look forward to this as a possibility - a goal to work toward. The doctor was speechless and just stood there staring at me. I knew then that he saw something special in me. His eyes seemed to say, “John, you are no mere mortal. I can sense in you a force far beyond anything I have ever known. Your strength will return and you will climb that mountain and you will throw off the burden of self-doubt and cast off the yoke of weakness for that mountain top will be yours”! I returned his gaze with an intensity that acknowledged his assessment and I nodded to show I understood. He laughed and I too laughed – we both laughed in the face of pain for I knew not what it was.