Our Own Best Doctors
As I walked to the cashier line at the local Weis supermarket, a woman approached me from the right. The aisles were crowded. I stood among rows of shoppers trying to find the best checkout line for a moment, then I gravitated to a spot behind a lady trying to put her selections on a conveyor belt, so I didn't glance around much. A woman marched into my field of vision. She stopped next to me. Finally, I noticed. My visitor was a straight-haired brunette, about five foot six, a bit younger than me. She was in good shape in the ordinary way of an office worker, someone who doesn't have much time to spend in the gym.
She gave me a friendly smile, which was, at the same time, a knowing expression. I wondered why she seemed so happy to see me and how we knew each other. Her face felt familiar, like she might be a person I'd seen enough to hold a brief conversation, maybe two or three.
"Aren't you Mr. Gallagher?" she asked. Because she knew my name, that eliminated her as the sort of casual acquaintance I sometimes make with strangers. So I knew I should remember her.
"Um, yes?" She looked too young to be a swim team parent. She was the right age for an elementary school teacher. Maybe she knew my children.
"Didn't you break your plantaris tendon?" she continued. "And you ended up on crutches?"
"Well, yes." Now I felt mystified. A few teachers had seen me hobbling around but not many.
"I work for Doctor D, across the street."
The revelation took a moment. When I understood, I couldn't withhold a wince. That particular orthopedist had been useless. In fact, he'd been counterproductive. My GP had recommended him, which meant he was competent at his job and many other things besides. (My GP in those years was fantastic. She kept track of her recommendations and paid attention to what her patients reported back to her.) The orthopedist must have done well by a patient before me. But he got my case wrong from the start.
The problem, as sometimes happens with experts, was the state of the guidance. People have a tendency to accept a general summary sentence in a textbook as a hard rule.
At the start of my only appearance in his office, Doctor D frowned when he saw me. I had broken my plantaris tendon. That's all I'd done, according to my paperwork. His textbooks told him it meant essentially nothing. Plantaris tendons aren't vital. I had hobbled in on crutches, so obviously (to him), I was a drama queen of some sort. He was pretty convinced from the start that I wasn't feeling any pain or disability. I only thought I was feeling pain.
"You don't need those crutches," he said.
He dutifully and competently examined my right leg. He saw the lump created by my rolled up plantaris. It had been a clean break.
"I guess this is sore. You did this when you were running?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Trying to get back in shape?" He gave a slight smile. Although my body was fairly young and still mostly muscle, I was starting to develop pudge around my middle. Years at a desk job can do that. A few weeks earlier, when I'd stepped on the scale and saw I was ten pounds overweight (again), I went back to running after work each day. On one of those days, I felt an electric twang in my right calf. It brought me to a halt. My leg felt weird. But I had a mile more to run to get home, so I resumed my trek.
Within a few minutes, I was limping as I ran. A minute more and I was walking. I could barely manage to put my right foot down. Soon, I couldn't. I finished by hopping on my left foot. Barely, I made it home. Right away, as I passed through the front door, I sent my family members to look for our old pair of wooden crutches.
That evening, I couldn't put weight on my right leg. The situation seemed to be getting worse, not better. I decided to visit my family doctor. Maybe there would be nothing she could do but I wanted to find out what had gone wrong with me.
She laid me down on a table the next day, touched my calf, and figured out it was the plantaris instantly. That's how I ended up in an orthopedic specialist's office.
The specialist kept telling me I wasn't really hurting. And I could go right back to running. But for my part, I kept not getting better. Day after day, week after week, I couldn't move my right foot. The swelling and pain continued. After a few weeks more on crutches, my GP gave me a different recommendation, this one to a podiatrist.
"Why didn't you see me before?" the podiatrist asked. "Your right calf is twenty percent bigger than your left."
"I didn't know that."
"Your plantaris is reattaching, probably. It's too late to do anything about it. But I can make you walk with a shoe insert, I bet."
His proposal seemed ridiculous. A mere insert couldn't help and I said so. But the podiatrist insisted. Eventually, I agreed to go along with the program. He measured me for inserts. After another week on crutches, I picked up the inserts and tried them in my shoes. To my shock, I found myself walking. In a few days, I felt almost normal. Although the shoe inserts weren't exactly a cure, they were an unexpected help.
At the follow-up visit, I left my crutches behind and walked in. To the podiatrist, I mentioned that my orthopedist said I could go back to running. The podiatrist laughed.
"Maybe someday," he said. "You can try. After your walking is pain free, maybe."
In the line at the grocery store, a year later, I tried not to insult the woman who worked for the orthopedist. She seemed professional, bright, and she still had on a sly expression. I noticed, finally, that she was wearing scrubs.
"The orthopedist, right." I nodded politely. I was struggling not to frown or sigh. "I see."
"Hah." She read my expression perfectly anyway. "I notice you're walking now. With a limp, but walking. Did you see someone else?"
"Two others. I got a set of inserts from Dr. Levine. Those helped. They really do a lot for me, I have to say. I can't walk without pain yet, I guess, but I don't need crutches."
"Just inserts? Interesting." Her mouth hung open in a wry smile, no teeth showing.
"Well, it's nice to meet you again." I didn't want to talk more with her in case she tried to get me another appointment with her boss.
"Did you know Dr. D broke his tendon?" She said this with a sort of glee. It was very odd. After all, she worked with him.
"Sorry to hear it."
"His plantaris tendon." Finally, her barely-contained smile broke into a teeth-baring grin. Her eyes crinkled. She beamed me a sense of smugness. "He's on crutches."
"What, really?" This time, it was my turn to let my jaw hang open.
"I've been thinking about you." She closed her lips but she couldn't suppress her satisfaction. Really, it had been on her face the whole time.
"Wow."
"Anyway, I'm really glad you're walking." She seemed to realize it was a funny conversation to have. People were starting to line up behind us. She gave me a tiny wave.
"Thanks," I said, and meant it a little extra.
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