It’s really late, but I felt like I had to tell you how my visit to Ithaca Orthopedic Group went.
I didn’t actually see an orthopedic surgeon, because I guess the universal rule is that you can never visit an orthopedic directly; you have to get referred to them by the whole world first. So I saw Dr. Krauss (hoping that’s how his name is spell) instead.
So, we started out with me telling him absolutely everything I knew about what had happened. I told him ab… oh! That reminds me. I don’t think I told you about my epiphany… well I’ll tell it to you the way I told Dr. Krauss.
Basically, this injury occurred a couple of years ago during school late March, 2007. I recall playing soccer in the gym after eating lunch, and I remember someone (I think it was Steve… knowing him like I think I do, it probably was) sandwiching me up against the wall really… lack of a word~… and after lunch period was when my clavicle was bothering me so much. Mom looked at it after school, said it was bent, and we saw the doctor the next day, and nothing got accomplished.
I told Krauss about my theory of it being a bowing fracture, and I told him about the few case studies I compared symptoms to, even if those case studies were ulnar bowing fracture. Anyway, he took a look at me, requested I get an x-ray on my spine (because he thought that I had a curve in the spine that was affecting the prominence of the deformity). He left to talk to the radiologist while I sat in the freezing exam room, pissed that he thought, of all things, that my spine was somehow part of the problem.
Anywho, he came back, and told me I had slight curvature (and honestly, who doesn’t? No one’s perfect), but it probably wasn’t affecting the clavicle all that much.
The good news; he told me, straight up, that he believed my self-diagnosis was absolutely correct, and he gave me a couple of tips to look for case studies that relate to the clavicle so I could better compare (you’ll see why in a minute). The bad news; since it’s been two years since the incident, putting an amazing amount of pressure on the bone just isn’t going to work. I’m going to need to get an osteotomy if I want to fix this clavicle. And guess what, folks! That’s not all.
Surgery on the clavicle takes a specialist, and I mean a specialist. This means, that if I get the surgery done, I may very well have to travel to NYC, or even Boston, to get this treated. That’s pretty expensive traveling wise, so most likely I’d be going by myself (and that’s gonna be scary as hell). Another potential problem is cost. I’ll need to get a CAT scan, among other things, and I know that while insurance helps pay for a good chunk of the cost, my clavicle could very well be classified a “pre-existing condition” and they won’t help pay for treatment. Maybe we ca find a loophole in that… who knows?
So right now, I’m waiting to hear about the situation regarding our health insurance before I figure out if I’ll be able to go through with it. And once I’ve done that, I’ve got a hell of a lot of research to do. I have to thank Krauss, though. He told me he’d look into clavicle specialists and help out with researching the treatment of a “plastic deformation clavicle fx” (fx = fracture). Those were the Google terms he gave me. So hey, I think you all should help research too. The search terms are in the quotation marks earlier in this paragraph. You’ll learn a thing or two. I know I’ve learned a shit load since I started on this little and tedious expedition.
But there you have it. To the stupid doctors: I. Fucking. Told. You. So. What the fuck now, BITCH! In the meantime, I’m not giving up on getting treatment — if there’s a will there’s a way. Just because I might have to travel a few hours doesn’t mean I’m not going to get it done.
And while Krauss was telling me “Well, I wouldn’t let my daughter go through with it, just because it’s a very delicate operation” — you need to do everything EXACT and perfect, or you fuck up everything — “And who knows if it’ll actually get rid of the pain”, I say that, well, may be it’ll work, and may be it won’t. But we won’t know unless we try? I’m not sue-happy, if that’s what you were concerned about, Krauss. I wouldn’t sue if you messed up — I’d just make you fix the mistake. The only exception is if I die because of something directly related to the surgery/treatment. In that case, I gave my mom permission to sue on my behalf. But since they’re specialists, and they’re orthopedic surgeons, I have faith that they know what they’re doing.
I’ll keep you all posted.
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