Getting down to business

I just got home from Santa Rosa about an hour ago. It was a fairly quick trip. It takes about 3-1/2 hours to get there, and oddly enough, 3-1/2 hours to get back. There in Santa Rosa I met Dr. Schakel (actually pronounced: skauckel). I sat in the lobby for almost 30 minutes before I was even moved to the exam room. I then sat in his exam room for another 10 minutes before he actually go to me. There were a million people in this building, the lobby was packed. I sat there observing people there in the room, and had the funny thought: What if people had their own theme music? I wonder what that room would have sounded like. I think I might explore this idea a little more, in a later post though.

Inside the exam room, I sat there reading his different awards and credentials. There were quite a few of them. With as many as there were, I expected him to be much older than he appeared to be. Best guess? Maybe late 30's, early 40's. It was hard to tell. He was wearing a shirt and tie with a sort of lab coat over the top. The coat seemed to be too big though, and it gave me the impression that he was sort of turtle like. At any rate, once he entered the exam room where I as waiting it was all business.

He had reviewed my x-rays prior to entering the exam room, then performed a quick examination of the ankle in question. Then he made a few simple statements of fact (which I am going to summarize):

1. I am looking at ankle fusion at some point down the road, there is no real way around that.
2. I am pretty young for an ankle fusion.
3. Ankle replacements are not a viable option for me because I am so young.
4. Arthroscopic surgery, to clean out the broken bone fragments and remove bone spurs that have formed will buy me some time before fusion becomes the only option left.

So, there it is in a nut shell. I believe, given his general attitude towards the thing, had I pressed for an ankle fusion he would have been OK with it. However, I am actually getting what I want out of this. So its a good thing for me.

I did make the request that I would not have to make a million trips to Santa Rosa before the surgery. He seemed fine with that, so he had his nurse come take my pre-op information right then. I did learn from this that my blood pressure, 117 over 72, is excellent. I also get the impression that this is going to happen sooner than later. So, while this is good for me, it is not good for my employer, as the doctor said prescribed recovery is about a month long (however, as far as I a concerned, I think a month away from work would be fantastic).

So I should be hearing from his office in the next day or two, I would imagine, in order to schedule the surgery.

I'm sure there will be more on this later. And as always, thanks for tuning in.