Monthly Archives: November 2017

What If I Slip?

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NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes From a Life in Medicine

40 hours out from my non-traumatic, sports-induced knee collapse, I’m off crutches, woo-hoooooo!  The knee is still swollen and stiff, and people still look twice when they see me limping.  I’m thinking of ordering from Peapod–the thought of walking around the grocery store, which I normally love doing, makes me wince a little.

I’m much more afraid, though, of the back slide that may ensue in these next days and weeks.  I’ve worked so hard the last few years, establishing and entraining an excellent exercise habit, and I was just hitting a period of new growth and ability, so exciting!  I was getting lighter and nimbler on my feet, and now I lurch clumsily, Trandelenburg-like (not really, but kinda).  All year I have felt sluggish and tense if more than two days went by without a work out.  I barely moved yesterday and I loved it, which scares me.

The last few months also saw a shift in my eating, recapturing a sense of control.  I was eating less without hunger or feeling deprived, and though my weight had remained roughly the same, my figure was noticeably streamlining.  I liked looking in the mirror again.  Last night I found myself grazing steadily after dark.  …Stress eating sucks.  I only recognized a few years ago that I do it, and I have since had much more empathy for my patients with similar patterns of food, tobacco, alcohol, and other ‘substance’ use.  I know I should not be shoveling tortilla chips, ice cream, cookies, and candy in my mouth at 10pm.  I know I don’t need the calories, I’m not really hungry, and I will feel guilty on the other side.  And I do it anyway.  It comes in cycles, and I have yet to find a healthier behavioral alternative in those moments (drink a full glass of water, get on the elliptical, drop and 20 push-ups!  Ooo, that last one might work…).

The point is, I really worry how this setback with my knee will derail and reverse all that I have accomplished until now.  (hyperventilation) GAAAAAHH!!

But wait, the injury was less than two days ago…  And I continue to feel better, regaining range of motion and limping slightly less with the help of ibuprofen and RICEing.  What did I write the other night about resting and recovering?  And what I have been preaching to patients about mindfulness, radical acceptance, and doing what you can at the time?  About small change steps sustained over time, and about how worry is counterproductive, because to paraphrase Michael J. Fox, if what you’re worried about actually happens, now you’ve lived it twice!?

Okay, I’ got this.  Plenty of movement I can still do with a bum knee (including maybe push-ups when I feel a late-night ice cream hankering).  I’m still the same motivated workout beast I was 60 hours ago, the same person who just got through a 30 day food challenge with only minor transgressions.  And JEEZ, it’s only been 40 hours.

Well thanks for helping me work through that, my friends.  I’m good now.

No Substitute for Time

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NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes From a Life in Medicine

Day 3

How much time do you spend with your doctor each time you see them?  Is it enough?  If they had more time to spend with you, how would you use it?  Would it be better?

I’m too tired and it’s too late tonight to discuss the myriad factors that erode the patient-physician relationship, and thus our medical system in general.  But time comes to mind often for me, and I wonder if patients are as frustrated about it as I am.

Where I work now, I pretty much have as much time as I want with people.  It’s a sweet gig.  I can ask them about their work, their families, their interests.  I have time to listen to the answers, and even connect those with my observations about their health.  The most interesting parts of my interviews are the social history.  What do they spend their days doing at work?  What problems do they solve, who do they interact with, and what brings them meaning at the place where they spend the majority of waking weekday hours?  Then what do they do for fun, what’s life like outside of work?  I get to know my patients as individual, whole people, which I love, and that makes me look forward to every day at work with joy.

But time is not just good for me, for my professional fulfillment.   It’s good for patients, too.  When I spend time asking the important questions, putting together pieces of a person’s symptom puzzle, and do a directed exam, I’m more likely to come to a correct diagnosis and make an appropriate and specific care plan.  When I take the time to explain my rationale, decision process, and possible outcomes and follow up, my patients are more likely to feel seen, heard, and reassured.  They are more likely to stick with the plan and contact me if things change.  The next time they need help, they are more likely to call me and we have another chance to know each other better.

When the physician-patient relationship flourishes, we’re all healthier.

I love this article on The Health Care Blog, which essentially validates the time I take to talk to my patients.  My favorite line:  “More information about the value of a physician-patient encounter will always be found in the content of their communication than in what they ultimately do. The difference in… physicians’ behaviors will not be found in any database, electronic medical record, or machine-learning algorithm. I have yet to see data on the contextual information from a history of the present illness in any data set or quality improvement initiative.”

You may also be interested in this article, describing the origin of the 15 minute clinic visit, and why it really doesn’t make sense.

What do you think about physicians and patients advocating together to change this aspect of our flawed medical system? I know it’s complicated, requiring a hard look at our billing and compensation processes, as well as our productivity-driven, fee-for-service medical culture.  I still think it’s worth pursuing.  There is no substitute for time.  We must protect and defend it; our health depends on it.

The Doctor Becomes the Patient

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Grandma Has Hurt Herself.

Tonight at volleyball, I was given the perfect set, my timing was getting better, I sprang and hit the ball over the net… I think it landed in, but I was distracted by the crunching sensation and noise I felt in my left knee, and then breathtaking pain as I landed the jump.  Immediately I went rolling, writhing on the floor, lamaze breathing long and slow (nice how that comes in handy at times like this).

As I sat sidelined, the medical inventory began:  No torsive forces, just a buckle.  No ankle or hip pain, only knee.  It’s the bad knee, had similar pain landing a little jump a few months ago, though not nearly this bad.  Pain primarily posterior, deep, left of center, worse with knee extension and dorsiflexion.  Anteromedial joint line pain with weight bearing.  Immediate but mild swelling/effusion.  Hmmm, maybe medial meniscus, possibly also PCL strain/tear?  When should I get the MRI?  How long before I can start PT?  Where is that knee sleeve I got before?  600mg ibuprofen STAT.

The young people were so loving, gathered around asking me where it hurt, getting ice, helping me up, grabbing blocks to put my leg up, glancing over empathetically as I RICEd.  I felt cared for and also embarrassed.

Not just embarrassed.  I felt guilty, maybe even ashamed.  What had happened?  I’ve been training, I’m a good jumper, what did I do wrong?  Was it karmic payback?  I left home just as my kid was struggling with some homework—but nothing I thought she couldn’t handle.  Or maybe I had been getting too cocky that I could actually do this at my age?  Just yesterday I posted videos of my most recent progress on the TRX—I was openly bragging–“toot-toot!” I wrote gleefully.  Or it was an error in judgment: I have not slept enough this week, and I knew I was tired before I went tonight.  But I wanted to go meet my new friends, I wanted to play and have fun.

The frustration came all at once, and with considerable force.  Thankfully I had a friend nearby with a consoling ear and some crutches to lend.  All athletes get injured, she said.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  Yes, I’ve been training, and I was also weekend warrioring it all these months.  This has been my problem knee for at least 15 years, maybe it was going to happen anyway.  It’s still interesting to watch, almost from outside myself, the emotional lava lamp of fear, regret, anxiety, dread, catatrophization, and sorrow.

Experience and maturity, however, make me optimistic.  It’s a temporary setback, and I have resources available to me for recovery, growth, and even enhancement.  Now I get to learn how to use crutches, and I can relate much better to my patients with knee injuries.  I also get to test my newly formed theory that though we may slow down in general with age, we need not resign ourselves to inevitable and morose decline.  Patients ask me often, what should they expect to be able to do at this age or that, how can they know their limits?  For a long time I had no good answer.  But as I have regained strength, endurance, stability and mobility these last few years (tonight notwithstanding), I now tell them: It depends on what you want and how much you invest.  My 1977 Oldsmobile will not run like my 2012 Highlander.  But if I really want to drive that thing, I can put in all the special care and maintenance required and make it roadworthy.  It’s the same with our bodies.  They are incredibly resilient and adaptive, and also mortal.  So we must Fuel and Train, then Rest and Recover appropriately.

I guess I pushed past my current limits tonight.  Setback acknowledged.  I don’t regret the last five months–I made new friends and played and had fun!  I anticipate a high-learning road to recovery.  And I think I’ll get back before they forget me.