Das Boot

It's been probably two weeks since my last entry, but there really hasn't been much to talk about. The last two weeks has pretty much been one of two things: work or hanging out with my lady friend.

The only real major change that has occurred for me stems from an injury I wrote about a month ago. If you'll recall, I got hit by a golf ball while out on a course southeast of Atlanta. With ice and a couple of dips in the cold pool - in the training room at our athletic facility we have two pools, one is always at 60 degrees and the other is at 105 - I was able to work out a little bit. But the following week my leg felt worse and then I tried to play flag football, but that made it only worse.

Last Friday I saw one of our team physicians and he told me I needed x-rays. On Monday I went and got it checked out. Getting the actual x-ray took about five minutes, which was surprising for an HMO. The x-ray machines now are pretty sweet. The imagines come up on one screen and then the technician can put arrows pointing to the injury, etc. Even before the film was printed I could see a little fracture just above the ankle on the outside of my left leg. I was hoping I would get a boot and not a cast.

The radiologist, which how cool is this, who wasn't even on site, after looking at my x-ray, called my doctor's office and told them I needed to get in with an orthopedist ASAP. My doctor's office calls me and asked how and when the injury occurred and told me to not put any weight on the leg - which was kind of tough considering I didn't have crutches - and that they would call me soon with an appointment. An hour later around 11:30 a.m. I'm still in the x-ray waiting room when one of the receptionist suggest I call back. Good thing she suggested that because they had no idea when I was getting in with the orthopedist so I went back to work. At 4:30 I call back to my doctor and they still don't know when I'm going to be in. Just before five they tell me I've got a 1 p.m. appointment the next day.

For one reason or another, my insurance company has tried twice to mail me my info pack with my insurance card, but it has gotten returned. Since I need the card to see the orthopedist, I had to drive to the far north side of town to get the card then go to the orthopedist. I get there and fill out the SAT like 8 pages of forms before I go in to see the doc and about five minutes after filling out the paper work they take me back. 40 minutes later I finally see the guy, who is actually a physician's assistant, not an actual doctor. If I wanted to see a doctor it could have taken an extra day or two which is stupid even I knew the damn thing was fractured. The only saving grace of all this was that I had my iPod and I was watching episodes of "Grey's Anatomy".

The guy looks at my x-ray then tells me what I already know. He agreed to the boot over the cast and said since the injury happened three weeks ago I would probably have to be in it for only six weeks instead of the normal 10. This took about 10 minutes so it was 40 minutes of sitting 10 of actually talking to the guy. When you make your appointment they should tell you that you should show up at 1 to fill out the forms, but it won't be 1:45 until actually see someone. I think I would have gotten pretty pissed if I didn't have the iPod.

The PA sends me to prosthetics/orothodic office to get fitted for the boot. Again it's another 30 minute wait to meet five minutes with a guy. All the boot guy asked me for was my shoe size then he brought it back and showed me how to put it on. Ridiculous. I could have figured it out myself and saved both of us some time. I finally got back to the office around 3 p.m. so I wasted a good 3 hours for a grand total of 15 minutes of face-to-face time.

So far the boot as made my leg feel much much better. It's designed to take most of the weight off the foot/ankle/leg so it can heal quicker. The PA said my leg would have eventually healed if if I never got the boot, but it would have taken a lot longer. I can already feel the difference because even for the short time when I walked without the boot - which is usually just at night before bed and in the morning when I'm getting ready - there isn't nearly the same level of pain.

For now the only exercise I can do is swimming - but no two feet pushoffs - and upper body lifting. In about a month I'll be able to ride a bike - though I may start doing it with the boot on since its such a short distance from my place - and in three months I can start jogging again. I go back in a month so we'll see what the PA has to say.