I went to the orthopedic surgeon (the new one, not the jerk) yesterday to get new x-rays on my ankle. Things are looking good, and we’re talking pin removal come January so I can gain enough flexibility to go down stairs normally again. Woo-hoo!
Also, provided my employment stays the same, insurance covers the whole damn thing. Double woo-hoo! And if you’re interested, this is a comprehensive chart of the the health care proposals of the two major Presidential candidates. That link went over my head just enough that I figure I should get the surgery before some new plan comes into play, just in case.
Because I’m a cheap bastard, I didn’t fork over the $5 for a copy of my x-rays so I could share them on my blog. Instead, I did a Google image search to see if there was anyone else who posted pictures of a similar nature. And wouldn’t you know it, the internet is full of people who have broken ankles! I don’t feel so special, anymore now that I know posting pictures of your surgical scars is “trendy.”
While I was at the doctor’s office, I made an off-hand comment to the doc that I had hurt my hand at swimming that morning (as I get tired, my left arm won’t go up as high, and I get thwacked by the people in the lane coming in the other direction.) I was hoping to get a free ice pack out of him for my $20 co-pay, but instead I got… x-rays on my hand! If you ever get a chance to see what the insides of your body look like do it, it is kind of cool. It turns out that (as I thought) my hand was just bruised, but we also discovered that sometime in my life I had some kind of trauma to my left thumb (and no, that’s not the freak thumb.)
I tried to remember seriously injuring it, and I have no recollection. Most likely I got hit by a softball while playing Dad in the backyard, and he told me to “buck up and walk it off!” (He always wanted sons, poor guy.) I guess there’s something to be said for just letting your body heal itself naturally, and that is that you might just forget you ever hurt it.
Unless of course, you break your leg in three places while playing kickball. In that case I suggest medical attention.
Posted by alexa on September 30, 2008 at 9:28 am
i still think it is unbelievable that you broke your leg in that man places from kickball!
ugh, if the pins are stopping you from walking down stairs normally i would get them out for sure!
and our bodies are pretty damn tough when you think about it.
Posted by Dutchess of Kickball on September 30, 2008 at 9:32 am
This makes me want to get a full body x-ray to see how badly I’ve previously hurt myself when I thought I was just being a baby. I’m still convinced I really did chip my elbow when I was thrown from that stupid horse Tony.
Posted by mickey on September 30, 2008 at 9:53 am
It does make you wonder what you can get away with not seeing a doctor for. Then again, broken bones will heal themselves eventually, just not always correctly or in a straight line. So I guess doctors serve a purpose.
Posted by stefanie on September 30, 2008 at 9:55 am
I think that’s some good advice. Get a bruise? Walk it off. Break your leg in three places? See a doctor. Works for me!
Posted by Kyla Bea on September 30, 2008 at 9:56 am
Oh my goodness, congrats on being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
Posted by Howling Hill on September 30, 2008 at 10:19 am
Neither of the candidates plans are single payer. Drat.
Yea, medical attention for broken bones is a good idea. So is Demerol.
Posted by Lara on September 30, 2008 at 10:40 am
Woo hoo on the pin removal! Also, man, I did not realize that you broke your leg in THREE places! Why did I think just one? Damn, girl!
Posted by nancypearlwannabe on September 30, 2008 at 11:06 am
Advice to live by, Noelle.
Congrats on the good news for January! I am looking forward to hanging out with a non-bionic Noelle. Not that I don’t like the super-metal Noelle, but you know.
Posted by lizgwiz on September 30, 2008 at 11:12 am
I googled lots of cool pictures of people with volar buttress plates like mine, too. (That’s the $5,000 piece of titanium in my arm, for those wondering.) The internet is fun!
Posted by Allie on September 30, 2008 at 11:37 am
Wow. Funny how you can break stuff and not know how it happened. I think I broke my nose at one point, but have no recollection of it. The little bump on the bridge kind of freaks me out.
Will you miss your pins? Maybe they’ll let you keep them.
Posted by courtney on September 30, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Woo for the pin removal! Tell me, when you go through metal detectors, do the pins in your ankle set them off?
Posted by Dingo on September 30, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Woohoo for January pin removal! I’m going to my orthopedist today. How about I get some X-rays and then you can post them as your own?
Posted by apollocreed on September 30, 2008 at 1:22 pm
What the hell do you kick – a brick?
Posted by -R- on September 30, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad you found a nice doctor!
Posted by Aaron on September 30, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I’d like to get an x-ray of my brain. There’s a name for that, isn’t there? Brainscan? I got nothin’.
Posted by Ann on October 1, 2008 at 12:54 am
We had a guest speaker at football training yesterday – a guy who has both been on and coached teams who have won All-Ireland Club Medals. He told us about how you have to have the mental toughness to finish the match, to just drive on through whatever happens.
He got the whack of a hurley on his hand at the beginning of the match. It bled and hurt, but he got patched up at finished the match. Then after the match, he went to the hospital. The hand turned out to be shattered, to the point where he needed surgery to insert a wire and take out some of the bits.
He said ‘Did I finish that match because I was a great man? No. I finished that match because I’m stone cold mad.’
Posted by LadyRock13 on October 1, 2008 at 9:02 am
X-rays are awesome. I once aspired to decorate my entire bathroom with backlights and x-rays of various bodyparts of different animals and then remembered that I get grossed out by things like that so I painted it white and put up black towels instead. I still called it the x-ray room. Black and white.
Wait, will you get to keep the pin? That would be SO cool!
Posted by Kristabella on October 1, 2008 at 8:40 pm
So at my old job, the bitchy VP hurt her ankle really bad and had to have pins and surgery. She sent us photos of her x-rays over email. I’m not sure if she didn’t think we believed her or what. Or she was just an attention seeking famewhore.
But a few months later, during a sales training session, she was pulling up the PowerPoint presentation and then decided to show the room full of sales reps her stupid X-Ray.
I just wanted to share that and this is kind of appropos.