Last June, I had what I thought was a sprained ankle that turned out to be a cast wearin’ tibial stress fracture. Well, shit.
So, I mostly did the physical therapy (well, you know. I stopped early. But I kept up with the exercises for a pretty long while. Not great compliance, but better than a lot of people.) And I’ve barely been running, because I can’t seem to get started again - subconsciously afraid of injury, I think.
But recently, my ankle aches. A lot. This week, after I ran a little bit but mostly walked a 5K, all the time. Kept me up last night.
And my doctor’s office is very speedy and efficient with everything in the world… except referrals. And I need a referral to go to the orthopedic dude.
Sorry to hear you’ve taken up lame again, but you have got to follow the MDs and PTs advice on an injury like that. Especially since you’re a runner. I hope you heal quickly.
Oh, but it fulfills all the requirements of a hobby for me - it takes up a lot of your time, doesn’t allow you to do anything else, and there’s all sorts of expensive crap you have to buy for it.
Now my PCP says they sent in the referral, but the bone dude’s girls aren’t calling me back. The uninsured boyfriend is gobsmacked. “So… your leg might be broken, but they won’t call you back? At least if I had money I could just walk in!” I warned him about that Canadian socialized medicine shit where they make you walk around on your broken leg until… oh, wait.
ETA - I honestly don’t see how it could be from running this time, as I’ve hardly done any of it. I know I should have been more diligent about the therapy, though.
And AAARRRRRHGH they can’t make an appointment until I’ve paid my bill. The bill that after months and months of back and forth with the insurance card because of an initial stupid fucking screwup with the number WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKEN CARE OF. Oh my FUCKING GOD. And they treat you like a damned criminal like you’re trying to get away with something!
And now, if anybody cares, the insurance people are being helpful and understanding and trying to get it straightened out, while the doctor’s office is trying to leave me on the hook for a couple grand. And I still don’t have an appointment and am walking around on a broke-ass leg.
Ouch, I’m sorry to hear it happened again. I know what it is like to lose a hobby you once enjoyed but you can join a gym and still wear the nice duds. They have all kinds of machines and you can focus on upper body while the leg heals. We have one in town with a heated pool and Jacquizzi. Glad to hear the insurance people are getting it together.
Yeah, but a gym costs money. Running is free and makes you feel very virtuous.
The insurance people are telling me it’s going to take more than a week, so I sucked it up and paid the fucker. They say they’ll reimburse me if the judgment goes my way, but I figure I gotta preemptively write that off and if I get repaid it’s a bonus. At any rate, I got an appointment for Tuesday. Only cost me TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
Hippocratic oath, my ass, by the way. They know I’m insured. They know it’s a dumb mixup that cascaded into ten or twenty mixups. They will not treat a leg that’s probably technically broken and which I tell them is very painful until I give them money I don’t really owe them. First do no harm? Fuck you assholes.
It’s the only way they can stay in business these days.
I don’t suppose there’s another bone doc in the area you could see?
Either way, it both sucks and blows. Please do not do as the guy on some true life ER show I saw. He pulled a sock on his broken foot/ankle, and then tried to make a cast with cement. The chemical burns were something else. He also sutured a cut on his ribs with copper wire. Don’t do that, okay?
I’d understand, if I wasn’t insured. But everybody involved knows it’s a straight up mixup! I’m going to tell the doctor - I think they don’t hear about this shit, and if I were a doctor I’d damned well want to know that one of my previous patients couldn’t make an appointment because of an insurance screwup until she paid over a grand, even though she’s fully insured and not trying to pull any shit. Oh, and everybody seems to agree that it was his office that’s been trying to bill the wrong people for nine months.
On the homefront, it’s raining today, which is I think why it’s exceptionally painful. Aspirin doesn’t touch it, by the way, and the Mayo Clinic tells me that NSAIDs may retard bone healing.
