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Sports Related Injury: Update

So earlier this week when I went for my 7.5 mile run along the river I had a glorious time but managed to add yet one more incident to my cavalcade of sports related injuries. A vague soreness of the right ankle in a circle the corresponds with the top of my shoe -- it felt like I'd jumped out of a window and landed heavily on one foot -- this didn't manifest itself until the next day. I stayed off of it, but resumed walking the day after, during which time it swelled up a bit and the pain remained constant. I got a doctor's appointment. My doctor poked at it a bit, looked at the swelling, was, for me, not nearly as enthused as she ought to have been that my resting pulse rate had dropped from 80 to 55 since I'd seen her last, and suggested that my injury was likely a number of small inflamed ligaments but that it might also be a stress-fracture from repeated impacts. So she wrote me a prescription for a powerful anti-inflammatory (so potent is this drug that were I locked in a tiny room with Ted Nugent and Michael Moore, the mere presence of my drug soaked anti-inflammatory self would calm them so much they would become dear friends and rent an apartment together in Astoria) and scheduled me for an x-ray of my right ankle.

I walked over to the x-ray room and witnessed bureaucracy in action while half of the staff insisted that I needed a referral and the other half didn't. I sat around for 45 minutes while this was sorted out, paid $30, and was lead into the x-ray room by a pleasant young woman in grey scrubs.

"So," she said, "we're xraying your left ankle today?" she asked.

"No," I said, "my right. I hurt it performing sports."





Clickenzee to see this fancy camera EVEN BIGGER!


She was unfazed by my manly-sports-jockness and scrutinized the paper I'd brought over. It said "x-ray: RIGHT ANKLE" but my doctor had also checked the box that said "side of body: left".

"It's the right ankle," I said, "I may have stress fracture."

"We can't x-ray it," she said, "because this says left side of body. You'll need to call your doctor and get a new form faxed over."

I called my doctor's office, knowing that she had nothing better to to. The nurse at the desk said they'd update my file on the computer. This turned out not to be enough, the x-ray office couldn't print the document out, they needed a fax of it, for some nebulous reason. I called my doctor's office back. The nurse said they'd print it out and fax it over.

I sat back on the x-ray table. Waiting. One of the technicians hovered over the fax machine.

And I waited.

And I waited.

And ... the x-ray office eventually closed and I walked home with no x-ray. I filled my prescription for the powerful drugs and took my second pill just now. Hopefully this will clear things up in a few days.

I am inspired, however, to stay away from the nightmare which is the hospital system. I'm inclined now to just wrap broken things in poultices I've cribbed together from ancient manuscripts and witches at the knitting circle. And I want my $30 back for the x-ray that never happened.....

And that's the news from lake Woebegon.

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