Formalities

Doctor's visits, particularly ones associated with hospitals and research, tend to come with an insurmountable amount of paperwork. I have noticed that the more complex and impersonal a practicioner, the more paperwork one is required to fill out, and at a higher frequency. For example, whenever I visit my surgeon, I am required to fill out a ten-page form identical to the one I have filled out in my umpteen previous visits. Presently, I am almost able to recite the answers. In certain cases, a lot of questions are necessary, particularly with alternative medicine when the doctor is treating the whole body and not one isolated problem. However in general most of these forms are passed on to data entry and forgotten, as if the hospital simply needed to create a project to distract the interns.

Usually after I've filled out a lengthy form I'm ushered into an exam room where I wait for a half hour and then recite all my answers again for the doctor. Then, I'm told that everything is fine(-ish), and I should come back and check in again in a month or two - making both the visits and the forms completely unnecessary. It's a beautiful case of utter incompetence - and it fills me with confidence in my own intelligence. Seriously, people. Use of cognitive thinking would devise a better system. It's called the telephone.

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Laces

When I was 11, I slipped in my dance tights and broke my arm - just snapped both the radius and ulna, leaving my left arm in a full cast for two months. I happened to be playing a mechanical doll in my ballet school's production of "The Nutcracker", a coincidence that still makes me smile (and is rather ironic considering my current state). However, acting rolls aside, having one's hand locked in plaster is pretty debilitating in most other situations. I remember buying new clothes that would allow me to dress myself, like overalls and, most importantly, shoes with zippers.

I haven't been able to tie my shoes since my surgery. It has been reminiscent of my broken arm except that I'm limited in range of motion, not digital dexterity. I could not bend to the floor, or lift my leg, or rotate my hip, and so I could not reach my laces. My parents and sister have been tying my shoes at least three times a day for the past nine months, which is juvenile in the least and mortifying at best.

You may notice the past tense. I tied my own shoes today. A literal step, if you will.

photo credit: http://www.treehugger.com/shoes-ath-001.JPG

Tying in Chi

I've had a couple soirees with acupuncture, polar opposite experiences which had corresponding results. The first involved huge needles and rather mentally absent folks, leaving me with a severely cynical attitude towards the whole practice. It takes a lot to change my mind, but seriously, people - acupuncture is awesome.

My current acupuncturist is smart and conscientious, recognizing of the team sport aspect in my medical treatment and determined to simply add her stats to my roster. That is wonderfully reassuring, because purist health professionals are annoying. It's like being walked by someone wearing blinders who can't see that they're walking into cross-traffic.

The idea behind acupuncture - and Chinese medicine in general, I'm told - is to enhance the flow of chi to bring greater health and wellness to the body as a whole. I like this all-encompassing view of healing, because I can testify that when one part of the body breaks down, other parts soon follow. That includes mental functions, which are largely ignored in the Western sphere but play a huge part in physical illness and pain. Acupuncture brings all that together.

I initially had some issues with idea of needles - my skin is super sensitive, and I've never been a big fan of people sticking little pieces of metal into me. I've since learned that acupuncture needles come in different sizes, and after alerting my new practitioner to this she adjusted the diameter so that I don't feel them at all. Perhaps I've been desensitized by all the IVs I've had lately, but either way the sensation does not register any longer.

Treating general things has a domino effect on my health. Focusing on circulation moves blood through my injuries and helps my medicines get through my body to the site of my surgery. Working on sleep, digestion, and mood can greatly ease my pain. It's practical for someone to look at the whole body and say, okay, your spleen is sluggish, let's fix that and see if your pain goes down. Because, yes, we want the spleen to be at 100% when something else is broken. Duh.

As I'm slowly getting out of bed, it often feels like my body's breaking down. Having someone on the team who can deal with all the little things that break is reassuring, like I've just drafted the cleanup batter. I'm thinking acupuncture might do a whole heck of a lot for me. Grand slam.

photo credit: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/news/files/20070925_acupuncture.jpg

The Bad Days

Everything hurts.

I have aching joints. I feel like I'm about 80 years old. My knees stab, sting, and ache, my shoulders throb, and my neck can't be placed into any comfortable position. Is this why people hate getting in shape?

What if I've deteriorated all my cartilage in my months of lying in bed? What if my whole body aches the rest of my life? Why did my doctors let me do this?

This is just not okay. Once other parts of my body hurt more than the bit that's severely malfunctioning, something is not okay. System overload.

I apologize for the depressing nature of this post.

photo credit: http://www.thecamreport.com/images/arthritis.jpg

Pursuing Happiness - An Open Letter to Congress

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my support for President Barack Obama's health care bill.

I have spent the past nine months on bed rest due to a low back injury. I am twenty years old. My recovery has forced me to drop out of college, which has left me dependent on my parents. After my father's company was sold, he was left unemployed, and my family began our health insurance extension granted by California's COBRA law.

However, once my COBRA insurance runs out, I am on my own, most likely refused independent health insurance under the guise of a pre-existing condition. That will prevent me from getting the necessary care I need to heal.

My insurance discourages long-lasting treatments like physical therapy, allowing me only twelve visits each year. Contrastingly, a spinal fusion would be easily approved, an intense operation viewed as a "quick fix" for my relatively minor injury. Instead of caring for me with less invasive therapies, my insurance company would take the easy way out, and leave a previously healthy young woman with fused vertebrae.

I do not know what I will do when my insurance runs out. If I have to, I will use my allotted college funds to pay for health care, because I won't be able to get coverage in later years without a job worthy of a college graduate. It seems illogical – and unfair – that an injury would affect my life in this way.

I would like to believe that this is only a small part of myself. I would like to believe that I would one day get out of bed and become a positive, participating member of society. I would like to believe that I, too, can live the healthy, happy life this country promises.

I urge our elected representatives to weigh the consequences of not reforming health care at the soonest possible moment. As our president reminded us Wednesday evening, "the politically safe move would be... to defer reform one more year, or one more election, or one more term." But we cannot wait. The nation cannot wait. I cannot wait.

In the concluding paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, our Framers pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It is time that our citizens again rise to that challenge, working together to build a stronger society. Hold onto the self-evident truth that we have certain inalienable rights - to live without pain, to conquer an illness, and to have the physical ability to pursue happiness.

(Author's Note: Organizing for America has requested that we write letters to the editor in support of Mr. Obama's bill. That request inspired this letter. Yes, it has been submitted.)

photo credit: http://www.space-rockets.com/photo/congress.jpg

Pushing the Envelope

I overdid it at PT on Thursday, and now I'm feeling it. Trial and error is an unavoidable part of physical therapy - it's how you find your limits - but pushing the envelope too far results in flare-ups of varying degrees.

There's a line between playing it safe and working too hard, and it has to be walked to gain strength without damaging the body. My PT refers to this as "hurts so good," and loves when it happens to me because it means I'm letting go of my fear. The downside is the "hurts so bad" days afterward.

The ironic part of this is that the workout I accomplished Thursday would be a joke to me three years ago. How perfect. Now I get to imagine all the "hurts so bad" days it will take to get back to my former strength.

If you're wondering: yeah, it is totally worth it.

photo credit: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/5261377/2/istockphoto_5261377_blank_message_card_with_brown_envelope.jpg