Mike’s Journey

It was a beautiful day for flag football. Sunny. Warm. Good field without a bunch of little divots. These were the reasons to live in Southern California. After about fifteen minutes of actual play, I come running in off of the edge as defensive line and I heard the thing everyone hears - a loud “Pop!”. Oddly, I didn’t feel the sharp pain like someone kicked me. The more I reflect, that’s probably because having lost all of the strength in my right ankle, I went face first into the turf. It was then that I got to feel the burning sensation in the back of my ankle.

I’ve sprained and twisted my ankles before, so my first thought was “Get up and walk it off. Don’t be a wuss.” After two attempts to stand and feeling no strength at all in my ankle, I kinda lay there gasping with the knowledge that I’d done a real bad thing. I sat on the sidelines for a little while with the ankle in ice and made the dreaded call home. Somehow, I got myself home. Ok, that was over dramatic. I could drive, sort of, and I was able to make it home.

My wife and I made the trip to urgent care. Three x-rays later, I got to learn that it wasn’t broken. I had suspected as much since the pain had mostly gone away. I’d broken a finger before and that was just constant throbbing for a long time. The doctor did the strength test and basically told me to get an MRI, put me in a boot, and sent me on my way.

MRI ended up being on Tuesday after having torn it on Saturday. I go back to urgent care and the doctor confirms that it’s torn. He recommends a surgical group that I’ve never heard of. It was at this point that I’m glad I’m a consultant. Someone in the firm seems to always know someone. I could probably find someone who can decorate canoes in traditional, Native American paint schemes if I had to. With three surgeon candidates in hand, I started the meet and greet process only to find out that I needed to have a copy of my MRI which wouldn’t be available until Friday (7 days post-injury and counting).

Monday Surgeon #1 - highly recommended from a colleague who had his ACL rebuilt. He had good qualifications. He took the time to examine the ankle. He was pleasant. I sort of connected with him. He had a nice office and pleasant staff. He gave me some good advice - stop overthinking this and get the surgery done before the 3 week mark.

Monday Surgeon #2 - highly recommended from a colleague who had his shoulder repaired. He had excellent qualifications. He really didn’t examine the ankle much and I felt like I had to verbally spar with him to get information. Really turned me off.

Wednesday Surgeon #3 - the surgical group came highly recommended. Dr. Jung is one of their foot/ankle specialists and he has excellent qualifications. He spent time examining and testing the ankle, reviewing the MRI film with me, and describing the surgery itself - incision type, anesthesia options, locations. I really felt like I had a good rapport with him and selected Dr. Jung to do the surgery. It’s too bad he’s not in my insurance network. Bah. The insurance people.

The call with the insurance people was strained. The call center guy kept pushing me to go with an “in network” doctor. I had to politely but firmly tell him that I’m going with the person I feel gives me the best chance of recovery. I’m just thankful that we have the means to do that. I’d hate to have to go with a surgeon that I didn’t feel comfortable with just because insurance would cover 95% instead of 70% of the costs.

So, here I am. Waiting for surgery on Friday. This waiting is driving me nuts. My over-active imagination keeps creating possible outcomes and feeding the anxiety about surgery. I really have to hand it to Dennis. This blog space really has a lot of information to keep the imagination monster under control. My colleague who had his ACL rebuilt has also been a solid source of sound advice. His big recommendation - don’t over do it. He’s had 5 knee surgeries and each time has had to relearn that the slow and steady progress method is the best. My major frustration at the moment is that until the surgery happens, I’m in limbo not on the recovery path.

Oh well. As others have said, “Patience, grasshopper. All shall be revealed in time.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 1:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.