SurgeonWatch2009: The Dramatic (not really) Conclusion

For most of the month of October, I began a campaign I called SurgeonWatch2009, where I attempted for over a month to get a hold of my original surgeon, Dr. _____, who had mysteriously vanished after promising me that he would call the very moment he got the MRI reports the day after my appointment. After a month of the whole "don't call us, we'll call you" routine when I didn't even have an appointment date, I assumed that Dr. ___ had taken a little visit to Bermuda, gotten sucked up into the Bermuda Triangle, and was chilling out diagnosing early-stage arthritis on the Loch Ness Monster. Enter Dr. SecondOpinion.

In the back of my mind, I've always wondered with happened to Dr. ____. Did he think, "If I just ignore her long enough, her torn gluteus medius will repair itself in much the same way that a tantrum-throwing two-year-old will eventually calm down if no one fuels their rage?" Or did he simply forget and stash my case in the back of his mind behind the memo to clean the gutters and the reminder that the dog needs to get its anal glands squeezed? What miracle would have to happen for him to call me?

The miracle of Starbucks! Yes, on the way to see my neurologist, my mom ran into Dr. ___ at the Richmond General Hospital Starbucks. He didn't exactly come over for a chit chat, but the image of me gimping along the Richmond Hospital Lobby must have jostled something loose in his mind and made him think, "Gee....I feel like I know that girl from somewhere....I have this faint memory of saying, over two months ago, 'don't worry, we'll find out why you can't walk and fix you right up'...."

This must be why, today at 9 a.m., SurgeonWatch2009 came unexpectedly to a close. My mom received a call that went like this:
Secretary: Hi! Is this Arley or Arley's mom?
Mom: This is her mom....
Secretary: Oh, hi there! This is ___! From Dr. ____'s office!
Mom: Hi....
Secretary: Dr. ___ just got a report from Dr. Needles McNeedleson and he was wondering if you still needed his assistance or if you're seeing another surgeon....?
Mom: Uh....I think we're good....We're seeing Dr. SecondOpinion....
Secretary: Okay then! Take care! Bye!

It was exactly the conversation I wanted....two months ago. Now, the funny thing about this is that Dr. ___ received a report from Dr. SecondOpinion a month ago, so in theory should know that I've taken the Arley Dog and Pony Show elsewhere. I guess it's like when you're in high school and some guy you're interested in stops calling, and you don't hear from him for months until he sees you at the mall having a fro-yo with a new man, and all of a sudden he pops back into your life being like, "Hey, baby! It's recently come to my attention that you've got your shit together and are blissfully happy with someone else, which means it's exactly the right time for me to waltz back on to the scene for another round of my manly mind games!"

So, yes, my mom told Dr. ___ that he didn't have to worry: Dr. SecondOpinion has it all under control. Now here's hoping that Dr. SecondOpinion does, in fact, have it under control and won't send me back to Dr. ___.

Well, At Least the Verdict Wasn't "You Need to Exercise More."

I wrote yesterday about my Rocky-esque preparations for my appointment with Dr. SecondOpinion. Well, it's a good thing I went all "Eye of the Tiger" making lists of questions and symptoms, debating what demeanor to adopt, and generally rallying my mental troops, because I have just finished running (limping) a medical marathon. Somebody put a medal over my neck and get my ass some gatorade because I am spent. After 4.5 hours inside the Diamond Pavilion at VGH, (which is new and fancy, by the way!), I can officially say that I have received enough attention from the medical community to counteract the months of silence from Dr. ___.

Going to see a well-respected, cream-of-the-crop surgeon often resembles being stuck in some role-playing video game where you have to conquer a series of obstacles/riddles/tests of physical and mental prowess in order to pass the level and be granted audience with the king. I don't mind this one bit. If Dr. SecondOpinion decided that walking over burning coals would provide an adequate assessment of my gait pattern, you can bet your burn salve that I would do it blindfolded.

I therefore happily put up with another hip X-ray, even though I have had 8.3 million hip X-rays (next stop: glowing babies!) and even though it was the X-ray tech's first time and there was a boss X-ray tech standing over her and saying, "Are you sure you want to put your label there? Are you sure you want her foot like that?" I was such a shining beacon of patience and good-humour that the boss X-ray tech even remarked that I was the ideal patient to teach someone on both because of my attitude and the fact that I'm "so skinny you can feel every single bony structure on [my] body." Flattery will get you nowhere, Boss X-ray tech! I only let people feel my bony structures after dinner and a movie.

Next stop: Dr. SecondOpinion's office, where I filled out an elaborate three-page form that I suspect no one looked at. (Which is fine, because understanding my medical history is kind of like reading "Ulysses" in that most of it is bizarre, it takes far too long to get through, and you come out more confused than when you went in, though unlike "Ulysses" my medical history does not rely heavily on scatalogical references). The problem is that there are 5 million question marks in my medical history: "so...I'm a carrier for pseudochlorinestinaese deficiency and had a really freaky locked-in thing after my second surgery, but I didn't require breathing assistance so it could have been a bad reaction to the muscle relaxant they gave me..." "Yeah, I had this excruciatingly painful back problem but was too stupid/ suspicious of doctors to go to the hospital even though my mom and a personal trainer had to load me lying down into the back of my mom's PT Cruiser as if I was a piece of plywood and when I finally got an X-ray weeks later it showed I had multiple bilateral fractures on L4 L5 but that's not typical for a 20-something and an MRI didn't show much..." It's best to not even go there.

After 40 minutes in the first waiting room, I chilled out in a fancy hospital gown for another 40 minutes when in walked Dr. SecondOpinion Lite: Dr. SecondOpinion's intern, who was responsible for doing the grunt work of listening to my complaints and preparing a primilinary diagnosis. It's a tough gig being an intern and many of them are testy and sleep-deprived and trying so hard to project an aura of doctorly arrogance that they sometimes go a little overboard. Dr. SecondOpinion Lite's expert verdict: I was fine, shit would work itself out, and the problem was clearly that I had not tried hard enough and should (and I quote) "do more exercise." Wrong answer, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite! You just got a big, old F on a pop quiz named Arley.

Just when I was thinking I was going to have to start unleashing five months of pent-up rage and frustration on poor Dr. SecondOpinion Lite, he disappeared and Dr. SecondOpinion showed up to save the day. Dr. SecondOpinion sort of has this shimmery aura of brilliance with a general's air of efficiency. The man has hip replacements down. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and say, "Quick! Name me the muscles around the hip from back to front!" and he'd be like, "You want them in alphabetical order and do you want me to throw in the nerve pathways while I'm at it?" Homeboy is good. Doesn't have much time for questions, but he's good.

And the verdict: the torn gluteus medius is indeed wreaking havoc. When he pressed on my greater trochanter, (where the medius is attached), I indeed experienced what all of the medical reports I had been reading described as "exquisite tenderness." (Translation: stop-touching-me-there-right-now-I-will-kill-you-dead-I'm-dead-serious). After examining me, Dr. SecondOpinion noted that I walk "like I have polio," which is literally exactly what I have been saying. We're simile twins!

Unfortunately, he also suspects that my hip replacement has come loose because he could see some line around the prothesis and when he cranked my leg to the side I felt pain deep in the socket. (Not "exquisite tenderness," since when Dr. SecondOpinion Lite did the same motion on my leg, the pain was not so bad and since he didn't ask if it hurt, I didn't mention it). If the prothesis is loosened, that would explain the clunking and clicking I've been feeling.

Anyhow, Dr. SecondOpinion was really thorough and really patient with the fact that I really have to concentrate when someone asks me to move a particular muscle. The theory is that I spent so many years trying to disconnect myself from my lower body because I was in pain, I now have a hard time naturally making connections. In essence, I'm body stupid. But, Dr. Second Opinion was very patient and was good at isolating particular muscles and showing me how to make the connections.

So, what is Dr. SecondOpinion going to do? Alas, he says I need to be patient while they run some tests: a blood test to rule out infection, a spinal X-ray to see if my hip flexor problem is caused by my back, some freaky-ass test where they're going to jab a needle filled with anesthetic into my hip and see what goes on (spoiler alert: I will yelp), and possibly a bone scan. Problem: all this will take time. The end result is that I will probably need surgery, but it's unlikely that I'll get it before 2010. Sigh!

At the end of the day, the good news is that someone is finally giving a flying fuck about the fact that I walk like a heroin-addled zombie. Tests will be performed! Results will be achieved! The bad news is that I have gotten served another buffet-sized helping of BePatientAndWait pie. I thanked Dr. Second Opinion and got ready to go get some blood tests and some spine X-rays. After Dr. SecondOpinion left, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite (who had been chastized when he expressed his view that I should just do more exercise, much to my smirky delight) popped his head in the door. "You didn't tell me you had pain!" he said. I noted that a) actually, I had told about the pain around my ass and scar and b) he didn't ask if it hurt me when he twisted my leg and it wasn't wince-worthy.

So, yes, I wandered off to get some blood tests and pay another friendly visit to my good buddies at the X-ray department to get my spine examined and Dr. SecondOpinion Lite sulked off, pissed that I had gotten him in trouble with his boss. Maybe if he just tried harder and did some exercise....

Happy Birthday, Young and Hip!

While International Arley Appreciation Day is still a couple of weeks away (Nov. 15th, mark your calendars), today is another important milestone: "Young and Hip" turns 3 months old. If my blog was a human being, it would be able to recognize people by face and scent (I can't do that some days), squeal, gurgle, coo and do a "mini pushup" (something I also probably can't do). When "Young and Hip" first started, I promised A. that my blogging career would not last longer than a few weeks, since I would quickly get better and be back on my feet in no time (after all, I started "Young and Hip" when I was about 6 weeks post-surgery, which is about the time it takes 90-year-olds to start doing laps around me in physio) and run out of stuff to write about. Clearly, I was not anticipating my own ability to write 500 words about monkey slippers, or the fact that...well...I would be 19 weeks post-surgery and still walking like Rush Limbaugh after too many Vicodin cocktails.

And what am I getting "Young and Hip" for its birthday? A visit to Dr. SecondOpinion. Yes, tomorrow I will finally see an orthopedic surgeon. (Granted, not the one I've been trying to see for the past few weeks, but a surgeon all the same). And, believe me, I am taking this shit seriously. I'm a motherfucking general when it comes to preparing for doctor's appointments. I pretty much make D-Day look like a flashmob event. So, yes, I've written out a list of questions and typed up key symptoms and a rough timeline of the problem's history and prepared a file with my MRI CDs and the MRI report. Dr. SecondOpinion, I'll see your Type A personality and raise you a touch of OCD caused by 19 weeks of ass bruising and frustration. I am ready to fucking go.

Basically, I work from the assumption that my doctor is going to assume I'm an idiot and it's my job to at least pretend that I'm a competent giver of medical testimony. Nothing ruins your credibility like forgetting how many weeks post-surgery you are or whether your or not your grandmother had cancer (in my defense, when you hear the word "colostomy bag," you tend to tune out pretty quickly). I'm also working from the assumption that Dr. SecondOpinion and Dr. ____ are buddies and that Dr. SecondOpinion will side with his fellow colleague. (I picture them in a room with dark wood paneling and the stuffed heads of various jungle predators mounted on the walls, smoking cigars and talking about the Empire).

A delicate touch is therefore needed (and, if you haven't noticed, "delicate" and "Arley" are not often found together, hence the need for planning). It's an issue of balance. I want to be polite but also somehow answer the question, "So, what does your original surgeon think of this problem?" truthfully without saying, "he doesn't seem to give a fuck." I must be be empathetic but firm. I must respect his authority while still demanding answers. Perhaps I will say, "I know I'm not ordering food from McDonalds here and that a thorough diagnosis takes time, but..." Perhaps I will smile and be appropriately dressed and reference my Master's degree and Paralympic bronze medal and the fact that I'm only 26 a few times. Above all, however, I will be cheerful and open-minded. I've actually been seen by Dr. SecondOpinion when I was 16 and we didn't get along so well, though I'm fully willing to admit that I didn't get along with most people when I was 16. (I was listening to a lot of Hole and Bad Religion at the time). I have, however, heard from a lot of people that he's actually a nice guy and that he's one of the most respected surgeons in Vancouver, so I've decided to go into this appointment with a clean-slate mentality. My goal is to seem so mature yet so filled with youthful vim and vigor that he will forget the surly 16-year-old I was.

After all, I only get one shot at this. My biggest concern is that Dr. SecondOpinion will give me the old, "Oh, you don't walk that badly. Just start working at some surgeon's office who specializes in post-polio syndrome and you'll fit right in!" The phrase "give it some more time" or "these things usually take care of themselves" will absolutely devastate me. I have given this hip 19 weeks of time, which is roughly double the length of a Hollywood marriage. These things are not taking care of themselves. I know that surgeons are not miracle workers, but my hope is to come out of the appointment with a clear course of action and the knowledge of whether or not I can pop down to Illinois for a few weeks.

So, yes, tomorrow I will be rallying my mental troops and preparing for my Freaky Cyborg Hip's big day. What's that saying? Hope for the best but prepare for the worst? Bring it on, life. I'm prepared. (Just wait: my next blog post will be titled "Okay, Maybe Not"). And, now, I am off to go knock on some wood.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You...In Your Dreams

It's the day after Hallowe'en, which means that I've been chilling in bed eating package after package of Popeye's cigarettes (my costume was delicious, as well as cheap) and watching 8 (update: 9) episodes of "House." As I've said, "House" is my recovery porn: bad shit happens to people, shit gets worse, test after test confirms nothing, but everything works out in the end and, also, everyone is very good-looking. Also, the doctors tend to psychoanalyze their own motivations in agonizing detail, (resulting in such clunky lines as, "When you run out of questions you don't just run out of answers, you run out of hope"), which is an intellectual exercise I wouldn't mind if Dr. ___ engaged in every once in awhile. Also, somber music plays whenever something bad's about to happen, which would be handy.

Last night, I had a dream that Dr. ____ was refusing to call me because he's been reading my blog and is pissed off by my snarky analysis of his doctoring abilities. (The fact that Dr. ___ has infiltrated my subconscious suggests I'm perhaps putting in too much effort into SurgeonWatch2009. I somehow doubt that Dr. ___ is waking up in a cold sweat wondering why he can't stop dreaming of his zombie-walking patient trying to eat his brains while chanting, "Cure me....cure...me....fix...my...gimpy...leg....").

Anyhow, if Dr. ___ is reading this blog, then a) he obviously has too much time on his hands and should invest a little more interest in the whole "me not walking like a polio-stricken zombie" business in order to alleviate his boredom and b) he should be aware that while I am certainly snarky, I try my best to be fair. Do I direct my snark superpowers towards my physiotherapists? No. Why? Because they're doing their jobs with competence, compassion and empathy. Do I trash talk any of the other surgeons I've seen? No. Why? Same reason. If Dr. ___ wanted me to stop complaining about him, then there's a very easy solution. I'll give you a hint: the answer is not "keep avoiding me at all costs."

My "House" marathon has taught me one thing. In the show, patients are often in comas, rendered incapacitated by tumors, speaking in tongues, seizures etc. If they're not in comas, then they're generally hinderances to diagnosis, prone to refusing treatment because they have misgivings or becoming emotional at inopportune moments. One physician remarks that the average doctor only listens to a patient speaking for 18 seconds, since tests tell them everything they need to know. Another complains about patients and their boring lives. Only biopsies and CT scans and MRIs and bloodwork and surgery can be trusted.

So, despite the fact that I'm probably one of his few patients who does not smell like Werther's Originals and Ben-Gay, it's no shock that Dr. ___ wants to get rid of me. What he doesn't seem to realize, however, is that we both want the same thing. I would like nothing better than to hop out of bed and stop spending my life looking at the Facebook wedding albums of people I don't know or eating my weight in Popeye's cigarettes. If I never have to hear the phrase "You have reached the office of Dr. ____. I am either on the other line or away from my desk. Please note that office hours are..." I will be the happiest of happy campers. Until something happens, however, I have to keep being annoying/snarky/full of seething rage.

So, Dr. ___, if it turns out that I've been blessed with dream-based psychic abilities and you are reading this, the solution is rather simple: if you want me to stop complaining, then give me something else to write about.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: Okay, This Shit is Getting Boring

SurgeonWatch2009 has been going on so long that I've run out of snarky ways to discuss my surgeon not phoning, so I will give it to you straight up, no chaser: no, Dr. ___ did not call today. After countless days of playing the most one-sided game of phone tag ever, (tag, you're it! Tag, you're still it! Tag, you've been it for three weeks!), I took a day off from SurgeonWatch2009. But today, alas, was not without its disappointments.

You know how I've been talking about how badly I wanted to get down to Illinois to see the Neko Case concert because my friend knew the guitarist and had VIP access, and how my plan was to book a flight the minute I saw the surgeon and knew what the hip-timeline was? Yeah, well, the ticket kind of fell through. So, now, endless questions: do I try to purchase a ticket without knowing whether I can even make the concert? Is there a way to purchase a ticket so that, if I am not able to go, A. could go in my place? Can I even purchase a ticket? Should I take this as a sign that the concert is not to be? This question is made all the more prudent by the fact that I've learned that Sarah Harmer is opening for Neko Case and Sarah Harmer's "Dogs and Thunder" is one of the first songs I ever learned to play on guitar and is my very, very favorite to sing when I'm having a bad day and I really want to hear it live. Fuck. Why can't Urbana be closer to Vancouver?

It did not help that it was dark and rainy in Vancouver today and that I was a dumbass who decided to walk for an hour, then do half an hour on the elliptical machine at my mom's friend's house, then try to walk back home. I slogged through the rain for half an hour until I got a couple of blocks from my house and my hip quite literally refused to go any further. I had to stop, rest, and turn off my Ipod so as to devote my full powers of concentration to walking the last block or else I would probably have still been standing there, humming "I Believe I Can Fly" and trying to levitate home, since it probably takes more than the Jock-Jam remix to get all 160-odd pounds of Arleyness of the ground.

When I used to play basketball, Tuesday practices were devoted to "chair skills," which is a euphemism for "push so hard you vomit your breakfast several times in your mouth and have to swallow it because you're in the middle of a set and can't stop" (sorry, gross). I actually really loved chair skills (there's something so fantastic about being done, when you've exerted absolutely every ounce of energy you have and you're pleasantly tired and that drink of cold water tastes like the best thing in the world), but every once in awhile when I would hit the wall, I would count down how many more pushes I had until I could rest. Just knowing that I only had 50 more pushes (even if it was untrue) gave me something to focus on and made everything seem more managable.

So, there I was, dragging my hip along the wet-leaf-strewn minefield of the sidewalk, counting outloud to myself. I'd set 200 steps as my target goal and it actually turned out to be pretty accurate because I reached my front yard at 190 steps and I got inside the house at 212....where I promptly took a shitload of Extra-Strength Tylenol and had my mom make me tomato soup (thanks, mom!). When I got home, I also learned that my brother's girlfriend's mom (who's an orthopedic nurse) had sent me tons of information about repairing a torn gluteus medius. (Thanks!) I'd found so many conflicting reports on the internet that it was great to read some information that's been sanctioned by an authority higher than Google. Here's hoping that Dr. SecondOpinion can get the surgery party started.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: This Has Been Going on Too Long For Me to Come Up With Interesting Post Titles

It's a few weeks into SurgeonWatch2009 and you all will be shocked (not really) to learn that Dr. ___ did not call. He did, however, have his secretary call again. And, here, the secretary's ninja skills really become apparent. Though my mom was home at the time, the phone did not ring. The voice mail appeared as if some invisible carrier pigeon slipped through the window and dropped it into the phone. Homegirl is good. Anyhow, the secretary didn't have much to report: she thought that Dr. ___ had already called me, but since he hadn't she would put some pressure on him to do so. Obviously, her ninja karate-chopping/ intimidation skills are still under construction because Dr. ___ didn't feel inclined to pick up the phone. Still, you've got to hand it to the secretary for at least calling me back (kinda).

Where was I when the phone message was being delivered magically into our voice-mail inbox as if by tiny phone elves? At physio. What was I doing there? Getting a This-Is-How-You-Recover Seminar courtesy of a physiotherapy repeat customer. When I first started at physio, there was a round little man with a well-groomed moustache who'd had a knee replacement at nearly the same time that I had my hip replacement. About a month after we both started physio, moustache-man graduated and waltzed on out of there swaggering like a rock star, while I stayed behind bruising my ass on the exercise bike and trying for the 3586th time to unsuccessfully do one single clamshell exercise.

Today, I was doing my daily trampoline exercise (don't ask) when who walks in but moustache man! Turns out, he's recently had his second knee replacement. And, yes, he's only three weeks post-surgery and is already walking better than I am. Have you ever played Mario Kart and you run one too many times off the bridge in Bowser's Castle and end up sizzling your ass in lava and wasting precious seconds being fished out by that little cloud guy? And you see some other go-kart smoking up behind you and think, "Damned if I'm going to come in last place," so you unleash the fury of your red shell only to realize that your rival Mario-karter was actually lapping you? Yeah, that's the feeling I had at physio. I was lapped by someone with a finely trimmed moustached.

What's that shaking sound I hear? Oh, that's just the shaker from all the salt that's been poured into my wounds.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: Takin' It Back to the Old School

Another day, another message on Dr. ___'s answering machine and I am beginning to feel like a stalker. If Dr. ___ had a facebook page, I would totally be creeping on him. (I just checked to see if Dr. ___ really does have a facebook page, but unless he dresses up as a 20-year-old goth kid with high cheekbones from Michigan on his days off, I suspect that he does not. Oh well. There goes my chance to beat him at Bejeweled Blitz or send him a fix-my-fucking-hip-themed snowglobe). So, yes, SurgeonWatch2009 continues with a vengance.

In the meantime, I decided to get out my frustration the old-fashioned way: by pumping some iron. I used to really like weight-lifting. There's just something about lifting hundreds of pounds of solid metal above your head that makes you go fuck yeah. In fact, back in the day my max bench press was 245 pounds. I was kind of a beast.

For about two years before the surgery, I couldn't weight train because a) I had some mono-related heart problems and for a good year the only exercise I was allowed to do was watch "Bulging Brides" or "Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp" on TV and b) when I was finally cleared to weight train, I almost immediately developed the "hip not staying in its little socket home" problem, which weight-training aggravated. Want to know what's not fun? Having your hip come out of its socket while you have over a hundred pounds of metal suspended over your head. True story.

Since it's been 2 years since I've done any serious weight training, I decided to go back to the basics so I didn't get injured, because Lord knows that the last thing I need is a torn rotator cuff to match my torn gluteus medius. If I'd had my way, I would have gone back to the modified Jillian-Michaels cardio-plus-mild-weight-training workout I was doing before the surgery, (which was fun in a "my face is so purple I suspect my head might explode" kind of way), but none of it was post-hip-replacement friendly. Luckily, I remembered that way back in 2001, when I was starting to get serious about weight training, a friend of mine sent me the program he used to do when he was a national-team wheelchair racer in the 1980's, which he had named the Lifting Heavy Things workout. Even more luckily, I am an email packrat and never throw anything out, and I had even saved the workouts in a handy folder.

I figured that since my life is beginning to resemble the summer of 2001 more and more (no job, living with my parents, etc. etc.) I might as well embrace the deja vu by taking my weight training plan back to where it started. You know, like the circle of life, but with lat-pulldowns instead of the whole birth/death/ashes to ashes business. The fact that the weight-training program was created in around 1986 didn't deter me in the slightest, since the '80s gave us all sorts of awesomeness, like Pavement and Felt and The Pogues and Jesus and Mary Chain and, of course, me. (Speaking of me being born, International Arley Appreciation Day is Nov. 15th. Mark your calendars and prepare your sacrifices to the Arley shrine that I know you have in your house. I will also accept mixed tapes/CDs and cake).

Anyhow, weight-training ended up being a rather ambivalent experience. Yeah, it felt good to feel the familiar lactic-acid burn, but on the other hand I was depressingly weak and kitten-like and nearly everyone was stronger than me. To those of you who say "stop comparing yourself to other people! It's the journey, not the destination!" I say, "What's the point of weight training if you can't out-bench-press teenage boys, causing them to crowd around your lifting station with ego-deflation and reverence, whispering amongst themselves that, dude, she can totally bench press more than you and she's, like, a woman?" Another downside: I was so unused to weight-training that my arms began to shake, which made using my cane a little wobbly.

It is, however, good to mix up the workout program. I've been relying too much on the elliptical machine, which is making my anti-ass swollen. This is not entirely bad, since it would be very easy for people to mistake the swelling for my having a real ass. Nothing like a little inflammation to even things out down there. It does, however, make sitting down particularly unpleasant.

Anyhow, yes, bottom line: despite the fact that my workout should be renamed Lifting Fairly Light Things To Prevent Injuries, it was a tiny, little victory. Considering my obsessive nature as of late, though, I will have to work hard to not over-do it. I don't want to have to report in a month's time that either a) I have become a quadriplegic from dropping a bench-press bar on my throat or b) my arms have gone all Popeye-on-steroids. Moderation: not one of my strong suits.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: And the SurgeonWatch Continues

There are some things in this crazy world that you can rely on: the earth is round, the sky is blue (unless you live in Vancouver), the delicious taste of beef brisket cures all manners of ailments and afflictions, and my surgeon will not freaking call. Yup, it's been nearly three weeks since my doctor received my MRI reports and a week since my family doctor told me about the torn gluteus medius, and still Dr. ___ is still playing hard to get.

Have I left messages? Yes indeed. Has anyone called back? Absolutely not. So, as time ticks by and my phone does not ring, I'm turning to the power of the internets for answers. Usually, the internet is a divine source of all knowledge, wisdom and pictures of cats using bad grammar. (I am, after all, the woman who beefed up a 30-page graduate-level essay by wikipedia-ing various lit-crit scholars and tossing in a few quotes. Academia: ur doing it wrong). In this case, however, the internet seems only to be a source of confusion.

Most sites I've visited say that a torn gluteus medius is usually repaired surgically. Some, however, say that surgery is often unsuccessful and can only be done in some cases. (Though, why some cases are operate-able and some are not is unclear. Is it based on the severity of the tear or the time elapsed between the tear and when it's discovered?). One site even bucked the trend and said that a torn gluteus medius never requires surgery. Medical writers of the internets: you people need to have a conference call and get your story straight because this shit is ridiculous.

Now, of course, this whole labryinth of confusion could be prevented if the doctor would pick up the phone and/or schedule me an appointment so we could have a little chit-chat about what is to be done. Instead, I'm watching episode after episode of "House," which is like medical porn to me because everything happens very quickly. People get sick, tests are performed, diagnoses are made and revised and re-made, someone has an "aha!" moment at exacly the right time to save a patient's life, and everything is wrapped up with a bow in an hour. No one waits three weeks for a phone call. No one resorts to google to see what's wrong with them. A lot of people run around frantically, House makes a few caustic remarks and does something borderline unethical, and happy endings abound.

See, at the end of the day, I don't mind if my doctor is a douche-kabob as long as he gets shit done. We don't have to bond over martinis or have a meaningful heart-to-heart over tea and scones. I just want prompt medical attention. Or, if there's a good reason why I can't have prompt medical attention, I want to know that reason so that I don't find myself trying to decipher the medical-ese of some internet article at 3 a.m. Because, believe me, the number of medical articles I read at 3 a.m. is directly proportional to the amount of cranky phone messages Dr. ___'s office will receive the next day, which isn't good for anyone involved.

La - La How The Life Goes On

You would think that given the events of yesterday, today would be a day of shouting matches and sit-ins and general ass-kickery. If my life was a movie, then today should have been the part where Gregorian chants play and there are lots of shots of the intrepid hero readying for battle and striding purposefully towards her destiny in slow motion. (See? More proof that my life should be a movie. You don't even need any special effects to make me walk in slow motion!)

It was not to be. The day started off with a bang, with my physio expressing rage over Dr. ___'s wake-me-up-when-something-more-interesting-than-restoring-Arley's-ability-to-walk-happens behaviour. She was not surprised at the diagnosis and was able to decode the fancy medical jargon of the report to tell me that a) the gluteus medius muscle is torn through, but is still attached at one site, so it's not completely flapping in the breeze like a windsock made of meat (sorry, that was gross) and b) that, despite what the neurologist told me, the nerve test did apparently show that my hip flexors have nerve damage, though on the MRI they are "within normal range." Still, no one can tell me what "fatty infiltration" means, so I am sticking with the mental image of chubby marshmallow men reinacting the beach scene from "Saving Private Ryan" until proven otherwise. So, it's not a total eclipse of the hip, more like a partial eclipse of the hip (a crescent moon?).

According to my physio, she's had one other patient who has had this problem. The patient was sent to the same SuperSurgeon *insert your own images of a really old white guy wearing spandex and a cape here* as I am being referred to and this SuperSurgeon refused to operate on her, even though she was fairly young (in her 50's) and active. The pain and muscle weakness never healed.

So, after that cheerful taste of things to come, I went home feeling incredibly confused. If I go to a second surgeon to get another opinion, will Dr. ___ no longer treat me? Should I phone Dr. ___ and give him hell (well, ok, leave a snarky phone message, since the chance of talking to Dr. ___ is roughly the same as the chance that I'll ever become a classically trained ballerina) or would that merely piss him off? If I go see a second surgeon, will it take months to get an operating time? But do I trust Dr. ___ to do the surgery? But, then again, wouldn't he have the most incentive to heal me? And do I even know if I need surgery? What if it's it already too late and I am fated to spend the rest of my life dropping my cane and being unable to pick it up without great awkwardness?

It turns out that there was nothing to be done anyways. My family doctor's office hadn't yet sent the referral so I couldn't make an appointment with the new surgeon and I decided to hold off on my knee-jerk reaction to phone Dr. ___ and tell him that he better start watching re-runs of "Frankenstein" because homeboy needs to get in the lab and grow me a brand new gluteus medius.

And so, in the absence of any meaningful progress, life went on (and I got that Beatles song stuck in my head). My ass was so bruised from sitting on the hard chairs at Starbucks (oh, New West Starbucks, why do you not have the plush Starbucks throne I enjoyed in Urbana?) that I chose to lay off doing a cardio workout. Instead, I hung out at the library and tried not to be too creeped out by the guys in trenchcoats who use the nonfiction section as their skulking grounds and always seem to be stroking their quasi-beards in great contemplation and holding large-print copies of Camus novels. I read some Canadian poetry, worked on my manuscript, and took out some books (for whatever reason, the overdue fines that I have avoided paying for the past 5 years due to a dispute I had with a librarian which is too ridiculous and convoluted to get into now have miraculously disappeared). Then I walked to the Dollar Store, bought a new notebook, and waited in line to pay for it for 10 minutes as some woman bought $50 worth of artificial plants, the chemically smell of which I could detect from a few feet away.

So, yes, while I was hoping that today would be a day where I go all Angelina-Jolie-In-Every-Movie-She's-Ever-Been-In on the medical community, instead it was a day to crank up the emo ballads and walk in the rain.

Total Eclipse of the Hip

It's no great secret that I've been frustrated by this whole "surgeon erecting the Berlin Wall instead of figuring out what's wrong with me" business. The situation has gotten so bad that today, when I saw a middle-aged guy on the stationary bike at the gym who had the regal, holier-than-thou expression of a surgeon, I considered asking him whether he knew anything about hip replacements. (No, he was not wearing a "trust me: I'm a doctor" shirt). Well, turns out that even if the guy at the gym was a truck driver, he might have been more helpful than my surgeon. As it turns out, Dr. ___ might not need to figure out what's wrong with me, because he already knows.

I am lucky enough to be one of the few people in North America to still have a family doctor: someone who has known me since childhood, has followed my medical ups and downs, and therefore doesn't see me as patient #14,058. Yesterday, I got a call from my family doctor saying that he wanted to see me immediately; (what? You mean it's possible to book an appointment with a doctor without a PhD in conflict resolution? You mean, sometimes a doctor does not run screaming in the other direction when you approach?) I had a sinking feeling that I knew what this was all about and sure enough, my family doctor had received a copy of the MRI reports, the same MRI reports that my surgeon has had since Oct 9th or 10th.

And what does the MRI that my surgeon has had in his possession for nearly two weeks and has yet to speak to me about say? That my gluteus medius has torn away and that there's "mild fatty infiltration at the origin of the gluetus minimus muscle." Translation: it's no wonder that all of my hip-strengthening exercises have been in vain, since it's hard to strengthen something that has torn free and is dangling loose in your body. Translation: I quite literally have an anti-ass, since my ass muscles have been damaged and are wasting away faster than Posh Spice. Now, I don't know what all that "fatty infiltration" business is about, since I don't speak medical-ese, (I envision dozens of little chubby marshmallow men wearing army hats all marching in drill formation), but I am fluent enough in what-the-fuck-ese to cry foul on Dr. ___.

I am not a surgeon. The sum total of my medical knowledge is "my hip hurts" and "my ass gets bruised because my ishial tuberosities are prominent"(ishial tuberosity is fancy medical terminology for "ass bones"). Perhaps it's standard procedure to double-check the results of an MRI considering I'll probably have to have surgery. But the fact that Dr. __ has yet to say, "Hey, look Arley. The MRI turned up this problem. We'll confirm it and then take the following steps" is more than a little worrisome. (What's the fancy medical terminology for "stop fucking around and fix my hip?")

So, yes, assuming that they can fix this problem, it looks like I'll be having more surgery, which means that I can look forward to projectile-vomiting luridly green bile thanks to my inability to keep down narcotic pain relievers, fainting every time I sit up because of blood loss, and generally sucking at life. The only question is: who's going to do the surgery? Dr. ___ doesn't seem so interested and I wouldn't want him to get bored and wander off for a sandwich when I'm on operating table.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: The Battle of the Medical Secretaries!

A few days ago, I wrote how SurgeonWatch2009 had culminated in his secretary calling me to say that they wanted to perform a third MRI. At the time, my reaction was a big ol' WTF because I had already undergone two MRIs in three weeks. (Clearly, my surgeon must have shares in The Learning Channel because he's intent on zapping my baby-making apparatus with so much radiation that in ten years my child will be starring in the hit series "The Two-Headed Boy Who Glows In the Dark And Shoots Lasers Out of His Eyes.")

Well, it turns out that I'm not the only one scratching my head over the decision. Today, I called to try to book my third MRI only to find the magnetic imaging department thrown into great chaos over the request: (well, okay, probably "great chaos" is a little too strong...maybe mild-to-moderate bewilderment). The MRI office expressed uncertainty about whether the surgeon had actually read the report, since they had pretty much scanned all there was to be scanned in my hip area and were of the opinion that my hip has had more pictures taken of it than the Gosselin sextuplets and there's no need to take any more. They won't schedule the MRI until the surgeon speaks to them directly. The secretary noted in classic I'm-trying-to-be-professional-but-I-really-want-to-go-off-on-a-bitch-speak that Dr. ___'s office is "not quite the easiest to get ahold of" and that they hadn't been "exactly forthcoming" as to why they wanted the MRI. They suggested that perhaps I would have better luck getting ahold of someone at the office (hah).

So, I put on my verbal boxing gloves, listened to "Eye of the Tiger," ran up and down the steps a few times Rocky-Balboa-style (read: I walked downstairs and got a Diet Coke, which took me 10 minutes, since stair-climbing is not my strongest suit) and went back into the ring for Round 28599 against Dr. ___'s secretary. To my surprise, she answered. When I explained my predicament--that no one would schedule the MRI until Dr. ___ talked to them directly--she became annoyed and directed her rage to the other secretary: "Oh, that woman is so...you know...she just keeps calling and I've tried to explain to her..." (oh, the nerve of those secretaries trying to do their jobs in a prompt and efficient manner!). Apparently, Dr. ___ "just walked in the office for the first time all week" and she would get back to me today. I must be psychic because the number of times I've called at the exact instant that Dr. ___ has just walked in the office for the first time all week is really quite impressive, as is the number of times I've called at the exact moment when she was just about to pick up the phone and call me back.

So, once again, another roadblock has been thrown up in what should be a pretty normal process. I can't get the MRI until Dr. ___'s office leaps into action and, if the lessons of history mean anything, then I can expect them to pick up the phone roughly around Nov 20th 2012. That means that SurgeonWatch 2009 is back on. Just in case my telephone campaign doesn't bear fruit, I think I should start tuning my guitar, finding myself a fringed leather vest, smoking a bunch of B.C. bud and getting ready for a good old-fashioned sit-in. Perhaps I should also practice sitting cross-legged (which I can't do) on the floor (which I also can't do), while police officers haul me off to jail (which would probably cause a hip dislocation). Hm. Can you stage a sit-in on a comfy non-ass-bruising chair or does that cost you street cred?

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: The Dramatic Conclusion

Just when I was beginning to think, "Hey, maybe now that all those searchers looking for the kid in the homemade balloon aren't busy, I could send them to look for my surgeon," a minor miracle happened: four days into SurgeonWatch 2009, my surgeon called. Well, okay, technically my surgeon's secretary called...and she managed to evade any questions I had. L-Cro pointed out that the secretary seems to have taken a page from the Alberto Gonzalez' playbook, because the entire conversation was a case-study in how to speak words without actually saying anything:

Secretary: *calling before 8 a.m., perhaps out of spite* Hello?
Me: *in that husky, I-was-fast-asleep-dreaming-of-not-walking-like-a-broken-robot-until-3-seconds-ago voice* Mmf? Hello?
Secretary: I'm calling from Dr. ___'s office. I talked to the doctor and he says the neuro is fine.
Me: The neuro from the nerve tests or from the MRI?
Secretary: He didn't really say. And he's sorry for not calling you sooner. He wants to do an MRI to look at your muscles.
Me: Did the other MRI show anything?
Secretary: He didn't say.
Me: Because I've had two MRIs in the past three weeks...and I'm assuming they showed the muscles....
Secretary: *getting annoyed* He didn't say. He just said to tell you that he wants you to have an MRI and we can go ahead and schedule it. So someone will call you.
Me: *still groggy and lacking the ability to go from fast asleep to full-on rage in 30 seconds* Ok....so there's no timeline on when he wants to see me next?.....
Secretary: Look, he really didn't say. If you could get me the address of the MRI place you go to, that would be great. You can just phone and leave it on my answering machine. (Translation: I am screening your calls and will not even pick up the phone when I know that you are calling to give me relevent information I've requested because that's how badly I don't want to hear your voice).
Me: Ok...
Secretary: Ok, bye now! *click*

Alright, Dr. ___ well played. You managed to deliver the phone call you promised (kind of) without giving any information at all. It's obvious that in medical receptionist school, the secretary got an A+ in verbal ninja skills. Someone from Philip Morris or the U.S. Department of Finance give her a job because homegirl is good; ("But aren't cigarettes cancerous?" "We don't have access to that information." "But doesn't lung cancer kill thousands of people each year?" "I haven't been given information on that question.")

In other news, my physio tried again to teach me how to walk properly and everyone ended up frustrated because my hip just. Won't. Fucking. Work. We tried for probably half an hour and nothing could stop by hip from giving out whenever I put pressure on it, which causes my shoulders to dip down in the lurching motion I've been complaining about for weeks. As I was futilely practicing some exercise the physio had given me while holding on to the balance bar (looking rather like a demented ballerina), I heard her whisper to the physio helper lady that things were not looking good, that something is seriously wrong with me and that somebody's going to be in big trouble. Yeah, you know things aren't looking great when the physios begin to whisper about you.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: The Action-Packed Trilogy

Well, SurgeonWatch 2009 has entered into its third exciting day and still no sign of the good doctor. If this keeps up, there will be more "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" posts than there are "The Land Before Time" sequels. In fact, the only success I had was getting ahold of his secretary who, before I even had time to say my name, chirped, "Hi, Arley. I've given Dr. ___ your message. He'll get back to you shortly. Okay, talk to you later!", which I guess solves the mystery of whether or not the doctor's office has call display and is screening my calls. Access. Denied.

I, however, was not about to sit around sulking and waiting for the phone to ring like a moony teenager in an Archie comic. Instead, I took off downtown were I could do my daily walk without the old ladies of New Westminster peering out of their houses and giving me the side-eye because they suspect that I am casing the joint because I pass by so often. (I don't blame them. With my cat-like agility and speed, I am the perfect candidate for a robber).

The main reason for my downtown visit, however, was to meet my new agent. I'm now being represented by the Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency, which is super exciting because they represent some authors I really like (M.A.C. Farrant, Aislinn Hunter, W.P. Kinsella) and are small enough that they can care about all of their authors. (Also, those of you have witnessed the rather haphazard way I conduct my life can probably see why I'm happy to have someone else handle the important job of finding a publisher for my novel). Yes, even though my recovery has stalled, it's good to know that my writing career is sprouting tiny little wings. (Fly, little writing career! Fly!)

The day involved the usual Arley-esque ridiculousness. I arrived an hour early because the meeting was in the Mt. Pleasant district of Vancouver, which has a number of clothing stores I like. As I walked down the street, a homeless man shouted, "God bless your leg, ma'am! God bless your leg!" God may have blessed my leg, but He apparently forgot to bless my big-ass wheelchair-basketball arms because I very quickly got them jammed tight into a 1940's dress I tried on at a vintage consignment shop. Five minutes later, the dress had only moved a fraction of an inch and I began to believe that I would miss the meeting because I was imprisoned forever in mothball-smelling wool and my entire literary career would be de-railed by the fact that seamstresses in the 1940s put ridiculously small zippers in their dresses...and that I've spent half my life under a bench-press machine making sure my guns were fully loaded.

It took the woman who owned the shop another 5 minutes to free me from my wool prison. From there on, it was smooth sailing. My agent was very nice and smart and had some great ideas for improving the book. Reality TV show producers should all band together and send me a nice fruit basket to woo me back because as of today the TV gets turned off. Saddle up your horses, brain! It's back into editing mode! We've got work to do!

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: The Highly Anticipated Sequel

Yesterday, I wrote about waiting around for my surgeon to call. He had promised that he would "definitely" call by Tuesday...or Wednesday "at the very latest." Has he called? Not unless he was the guy who phoned earlier offering to save me hundreds on my cable bill each month. If my relationship with my surgeon was a romantic comedy, it would star Jennifer Aniston and be called "He's Just Not That Into You"... except instead of the "falling in love and living happily ever after" ending, substitute the ending of "The Castle." (If you're saying to yourself, "But, Arley, Kafka died without finishing "The Castle" and it therefore has no ending," then give yourself a pat on the back and an honorary master's degree in English Literature because that is exactly the point). The ending of "Waiting For Godot" would also work.

Patience has never been a strong suit of mine and with each day that I wake up still walking like a 50-year-old retired WWE wrestler who's been hit on the back with a fold-up chair one too many times, I have less and less of it. A. had suggested that I just march down to his office and stage a little sit-in until I get some answers. I could bring my guitar and change the words to protest folk songs. For example, instead of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," I could sing "Like a Fucked-Up Gnome" to describe my walking abilities and instead of "There Is Power in a Union," I could sing "There is Power in a Lawsuit" (just kidding, doctor!) I decided, however, that all this would get me was arrested.

I tried a less-extreme measure. After lunch, I phoned the surgeon's office to see if I couldn't light a little fire under him. I, of course, got the answering machine, so I left a nice, decidedly non-bitchy message: "Hey, Dr. ____. It's Arley. I know you said that you'd give me a call by today, so I'm just calling to see if there's been any progress on getting my MRI report...and if you'd had a chance to talk to the neurologist...So if you could give me a call back, that would be great. Have a nice day!..." Non-bitchy, right? Perfectly normal, yes? Well, I should have amped up the bitch factor because homeboy did not give me a call back. Access. Denied.

Now, it could be that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. Maybe the neurologist is away at a My Little Pony Collector's Convention (though I don't take my neurologist for a "My Little Pony" type). Maybe someone else is staging a sit-in and my surgeon is a little tied up right now. Maybe the MRI report isn't ready because the radiologist saw the image of the Virgin Mary in my scans and they're being sold on Ebay for hundreds of dollars after being blessed by the Pope. Maybe my surgeon accidentally got his Hippocratic Oath mixed up with one of those "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" How to Make Vulnerable Woman Find You Attractive dating manuals. Who knows? Anything could have happened!

What I do know, however, is that I am not asking for a Louis Vitton cane-cover or a diamond-studded sock aid. How much effort does it cost to give me a call and say, "Hey, this is Dr. ___. Just checking to make sure that the magic hip-replacement fairies haven't descended from on high to restore your powers of ambulation. No? Well, hang in there. I called today about the MRI report but it's not ready yet, so I'm sorry to say that you'll have to wait a few more days. Thanks for your patience!" One minute, tops. He could even get his secretary to do it. Then, I would sit back, relax and trust him to do his job. See, at the end of the day, I don't think my surgeon is a bad guy. I respect the fact that he's busy and when you're busy things slip your mind. I hope, however, that "gee, my 26-year-old patient is walking worse than she was before I operated on her 4 months ago and is not improving. Perhaps I should investigate this" might stay on his radar for more than 24 hours. Perhaps Thanksgiving turkey has "Men in Black" memory-erasing properties.

Okay, Dr. ___. You won this round, but tomorrow is another day. And that day will involve speed dial.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

Yesterday, I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in style by eating my weight in candy corn, pumpkin cheesecake and turkey. Today, I feel slightly queasy, probably because the amount of sugar I've consumed has the Diabetes Fairy fluttering her wings at my window. So, between the sugar hangover, the gray Fall day and the fact that I went to visit my grandma today in the care home and all the old people were lined up in their wheelchairs to watch soap operas but none of them could see the TV so they simply stared into space...yeah, it's no wonder I have my cranky pants on.

Part of the reason I am cranky, too, is because today my surgeon was supposed to phone after conferencing with my neurologist to give me some indication of what's wrong with the hip. My surgeon is a nice-enough guy, but like most surgeons he's the master of "don't call us, we'll call you...roughly 3 weeks after we promised we would...and only then to tell you that we've lost your file/MRIs/X-rays/whatever and could you please re-send them so that in a month we'll be able to answer whatever simple request you had." When I was trying to book my surgery, I was so "persistent" (granted, I wouldn't have had to be "persistent" if they hadn't put me through a four-month Kafka-esque trial of ridiculousness just to get an operating date) that they actually changed the answering machine to note that "if you have already called once about your problem, please do not call again."

So, while I had high hopes that today might be the day that someone figures out what's wrong with my Freaky Cyborg Hip, I know that more realistically it could be next week...or two years later....or five days from now when I get fed up and sic my lawyer father on them, which tends to produce better responses. Now, I know that orthopedic surgeons and their secretaries are busy, and I appreciate that most orthopedic surgeons are not truly happy unless their patients are unconscious and they can focus on what really interests them, which is playing with medical powertools. Fair enough. If I had a job like that, I too would probably be like, "Ok, enough will all your jabbering on about your 'complications' and 'pain' and 'inability to walk without looking like a monster.' When do I get to saw someone's leg off?"And I'm sure that if there's one person who wants me to get better, it's my surgeon, since he wants to keep his spotless operating record and to do that, he either needs to prove that he didn't royally fuck me up, or figure out how he royally fucked me up and fix me.

Still, as time ticks on and my patience dwindles, it becomes less and less easy to sit still and wait for medical professionals to figure out what to do with me. So we'll see. I'm giving him until Thursday to call and then I'm coming out with verbal guns blazing. (Or...you know...I will just complain about it on my blog. Whichever).