Saturday, January 21, 2012

And where did you get your medical degree?

So yesterday I'm over at my landlord's house troubleshooting something on his computer (because he's barely capable of using the internet) and he asks why I'm limping (because he's immune to social niceties like not asking ultra personal questions) so I tell him it's this herniated disc thing, it's pinching the nerves and I have no feeling in my leg/foot and I have to get some fancy microdiscectomy surgery to fix it.


Landlord: You know why that happened? Because your body is out of balance, you don't use both sides equally, I make my kids write with their left hands so they won't have any back problems.

Me (pretending to focus on rearranging his screen): Mmmhmm

Landlord: You know, you really don't need surgery, you just need to stretch more

Me (biting my tongue to keep from mentioning that I've tried "stretching more" for several years, I've also tried physical therapy and anything else doctors have suggested to me. At this point, I don't have use of one leg - which makes is kind of difficult to, you know, WALK. And I've seen the MRI and the gross bulge-y thing sticking out of my spine isn't just going to pop back in if I go all downward dog on it)

Landlord: Are they doing the spinal fusion?

Me: no, it's a microdiscectomy, which is way less invasive and has a shorter recovery time. It can even be done as an outpatient procedure

Landlord: You should really have the fusion instead. The doctor is just doing that one so he'll have to do another one on you and get more money from the insurance company.

Admittedly, the neurosurgeon was kind of a dick (which, according to television and movies, means that he's an ace at his job... but seriously, I don't need Patch Adams, I'm not going to start a book club with him, I just want him to have steady hands),  I'm going to go ahead and go with the opinion of the board-certified guy with 30 years of medical experience, not the guy who took 3 weeks to figure out why the roof in my bedroom was leaking.