Climb Every Molehill

By Dean Kramer
January, 2008

I injured my knee while working in my garden last autumn. At first I ignored the injury because, after all, isn’t it enough that I have to deal with MS? Why should I have to take on a host of other ills as well?

Okay, so it wasn’t a “host”. It was simply a hyper-extended knee. Still, I expected this injury to go politely on its way without troubling me. Only, it didn’t go away. It got worse. So finally, considerably peeved, I went to see my primary care physician, knowing full well that I was opening a can of worms.

The worms in this can (I could see them wriggling my way from a great distance) consisted of examinations, tests, a visit to an orthopedic specialist, perhaps surgery, perhaps cortisone injections, physical therapy, and on and on. Because, let’s face it, few doctors are inclined to say, “You strained your knee? Big deal! Ice it with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and forget about it.”

Sure enough, my doctor wiggled my kneecap back and forth and wrote an order for X-Rays saying, “Depending on what turns up I’ll refer you to an orthopedic specialist and that doctor will probably recommend physical therapy.”

So, on a cold, gray winter’s day I went to get my knee X-Rayed at the local medical center. The medical center provides laboratory services and imaging of all kinds. I sat in a waiting room filled with coughing, wheezing children and older people and I prayed fervently not to leave with something worse than a strained knee. Every-so-often I put a few drops of hand sanitizer on my palms. I wondered if rubbing the stuff around my nostrils would be at all effective.

At last a technician called my name. I staggered to my feet, gripped my walker, and moved slowly in her direction. She strode quickly into the labyrinthine halls of the medical center. She strode so quickly that I actually lost sight of her and had to stop and wait for her to circle back to me. She guided me to a cubical, thrust a gown at me, and told me to remove everything except my underwear and put the gown on with the opening in the back.

For a knee X-Ray! Why couldn’t I just remove my trousers, I wondered, but she disappeared before I could ask. Well, I must say, it’s very difficult to hold a gown closed so as to cover one’s butt and push a walker at the same time. Who thinks up these humiliations, anyway?

The technician returned, tried (I swear) not to snicker, and guided me to the imaging room. There she had me pose in several different, equally painful, positions. Many of the positions were difficult for me to assume because of my stiffness, spasticity, and/or weakness due to MS.

Whenever I was unable to do as she asked she would haul my leg into the position she wished and tell me to hold still. And sometimes I could hold still, and sometimes my limb flopped out of position. I could see that she was beginning to lose patience with me.

Truth be told, she hadn’t seemed possessed of much patience to begin with and I could almost hear her muttering to herself, “Geez! Why do they keep sending me injured people to X-Ray? Cut me a break already!”

After she took the last view I had the obligatory wait while she checked to be sure the images were useful. She came back into the room and told me I could go. “Everything’s okay then?” I asked, “I mean, the pictures came out okay?”

I asked because, given the trouble she’d had posing me, I was surprised. “I know how to do my job.” She snarked at me, “If the images weren’t okay I wouldn’t have told you to go.”

I was on my way back to the cubical where I’d left my clothes. I was struggling with my gown and my walker when the penny dropped. And I realized that this woman didn’t know I had MS since I hadn’t said so. She probably thought I was making a big deal out of a minor knee injury by using a walker and “pretending” to be unable to follow her directions. She may even have wondered whether I was trying to drum up a bogus Workman’s Comp or Disability case.

So on the way out of the labyrinth, happening to pass her, I said, “I’m sorry for my difficulty following your instructions, but I have Multiple Sclerosis and can’t always control my limbs as I might wish.”

I knew I’d hit the nail on the head when her scowl cleared and she looked positively stricken. “Oh!” she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No reason why you would. “ I replied. And I headed back to Cripple Creek to await the result of the X-Rays.

A few days later my doctor called and told me the X-Ray showed nothing much wrong except for a little fluid in the joint. “So,” she said, “I’d like to refer you to an orthopedic doctor for follow-up and maybe some physical therapy. Would you like that?”

But I told her, "No thanks, I'll just rest it as much as possible and ice it with a pint of Ben and Jerry's." And so I've done.