Dr. Garrett asked me to return for follow up x-rays on my left ankle about two weeks out, and it's been two and a half weeks, so I head back to Urgent Care in Lindon.
Dr. Garrett is out on Spring Break, but a nurse practitioner is available to see me, so I head back to x-ray to get follow up images.
I never asked what part of my ankle I broke, so I ask the technician if I can see my earlier x-rays to see what I broke. She needs to know what x-rays to do, so she pulls them up and the formal report from the radiologist who read the x-rays after I left Dr. Garrett a few weeks ago.
She pulls up the x-rays and shows me where an earlier break of my malleolus occurred. (The malleolus is the rounded bony prominence on the outside of each ankle.) She can tell it was an earlier break because the edges are all rounded and smooth--evidence of a healed broken bone. And she points out the sharp jagged lines of what Dr. Garrett assumed was where I broke it this time. It's a smaller break, about a quarter of the size and behind the earlier break.
She pulls up the radiologist's report and we read together that he notes the earlier break but doesn't see evidence of any other breaks.
Wait a minute? I've been clunking around in that stupid boot when I didn't need to? Forget that! I'm ready to be done with the walking boot. Hooray!
The technician doesn't want to subject me to more radiation for a non-break, so back to the waiting room I go to wait for the nurse practitioner. She's fast and a few minutes later we're discussing my foot. She's looked at the old x-rays and the radiologist's report and is absolutely convinced I have broken my ankle and doesn't really know how to explain the report--except that radiologist's in her opinion can't be trusted.
She proceeds to tell me about a violent pain she had in her stomach for a while ago, insisted upon CT scans, and read the radiologist's report that all was normal. She insisted on seeing the pictures herself and noted lots of fluid accumulation right where she was feeling the pain. Turns out she needed surgery but felt immediately better after the surgery.
I recounted my own recent experience of having a CT scan to track the progress of chemo in shrinking the tumor in my right inguinal lymph node and not having the radiologist even mention the lump in his report. Then having to have them go back into the scans, measure the area, and add an addendum to the original report with the new measurements.
I can understand how they might miss a small break if they miss measuring a tumor that we've been tracking for several months now and were asked to compare the size to previous scans that were done at the same place (Central Utah Clinic in American Fork).
So back to x-ray we go to compare old films to new films to see if it's healing. The malleolus is supposed to be one bone. It looks like the new break is healing but it's not healing or attaching itself to the malleolus; instead, it's a separate little disk of bone that's just out there by itself.
She asks if it's causing pain. (No, because I can't feel my feet due to the neuropathy.) And then suggests that I come back in another two and half weeks to ensure that it continues to heal. If it was causing me pain or making it more difficult to walk, she recommend surgery. However, it's hard to tell if it needs surgical intervention because walking is difficult anyway, and I can't feel my feet.
The comedy of errors that is my life--it isn't broken, but wait it really is--continues!
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