Thursday, January 29, 2009

Here Come Pig Feet

After 3 years of foot pain and a tenative self-diagnosis, I finally went to the doctor. I am amazingly conservative with my patients and their health care and endlessly stubborn with my own. Soon, the list of things I couldn't do got longer and longer, (no running, hiking, walking a mere mile) affecting my life enough that I realized I had to change the situation. Another deciding factor to end the procrastination was getting on James' amazing insurance.

So far I've been through a primary care physician, a specialist/surgeon, a CT, and have a future repeat appointment with the specialist/surgeon. Gotta love the healthcare hoops HMOs make me jump through, but I can't complain too much as it's better than any insurance I've had in a long time.

Seems that my lateral seasmoid bone on my right foot is broken in half, with the CT report noting this is not a new fracture. On one hand, I am happy that my self-diagnosis was right all along. On the other, I am not excited for the surgery that accompanies this diagnosis and will likely put it off until summer. I guess in the meantime I'll hope for a short recovery time with a subsequent return to my love/hate relationship with jogging.

Friday, January 16, 2009

My Monday

Rewind to this past Monday...

It is 9:30am on Monday morning and I am seeing my second patient of the day. We are in the basement, and I am yet again trying to hold this boy's interest in any physical activity for more than 2 minutes at a time. I am dancing, Elaine-style, while he attempts to copy my movements, jumping around erratically and intermittently re-starting the Playschool music generator by pushing it with his foot. He is laughing hysterically, probably at my ridiculous dancing, and I can't help but laugh along with him. I love this job.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Book Club

A few of my friends from physical therapy school started an amazing bookclub/wine night. It reminds me how much I love being with smart and motivated women. And how much I love drinking wine.

The sad part of the night was the number of my friends who hate their jobs. It's staggering, considering we spent so much time during 4 years of undergrad and 3 years of grad school to end up with a doctorate degree, endless student loans, and a potentially horrible job. In these economic times it's hard to complain about any job, but some of my colleagues are going up against the lack of lunch break, lack of overtime pay, and threats to have to pay back benefits if they quit before a year. Others get their paycheck upon attendance of a mandatory in-service and are told by the higher-ups that there's no reason everyone has to be friends. Others still are faced with ethical dilemas including being asked to bill for units that have the best reimbursement rate, regardless of the actual treatment given.

In the end I overate, drank too much amazing white wine, and came home with a newfound appreciation for my wonderful job(s).

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Gym

I haven't been in forever, and I started realizing that I'm exhausted and unhealthy, so I went a few times this week. Besides the discouraging fact that my endurance is way down and I can only do half of what I was doing before the wedding, I had fun.

After 20 minutes of blasting pop music, trying to irritate my broken foot bone as little as possible, and glancing at the guy next to me so I could out do him (I'm sickly competitive this way) on the stair stepper, I limped over to the recumbent bikes and took my spot next to the adorable elderly couple, where I belong.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Curious Case

Last night, against his will, I dragged James out to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. James doesn't typically like to go out to movies, the primary reason being the ridiculous expense. I somehow managed to convince him to go, despite my own reluctance at a 3 hour movie (this is not right, no movie should have to be over 2 hours). I loved the movie, although I will say that I generally tend to love Brad Pitt movies that are amazingly slow moving- my favorite movie is A River Runs Through It, not too action-packed.

The end was interesting and I was struck by the similarities between the very young and the very old. It seems that we are not so different at the beginning of our lives as we are from the end. Benjamin, who ages backwards, slowly turned into a child, developed Alzheimers, and forgot how to do things such as bathe and walk.

I work with disabled children and have often been asked how I am able to do it, as it seems so sad. I guess I don't see it that way- I love the imagination required to work with kids and also appreciate the opportunity to truly make a difference in a child's life. On the other hand, I think it would be amazingly difficult to work with the elderly, for the same reason- it seems so sad. For some reason aging seems immensely scary to me and I can only imagine my body and mind failing, I debate which would be worse. After this movie I wondered whether it the differences between the beginning and end of life are really so different.

As I can't seem to tie this post into something relatively logical and coherent, or to wrap up my thoughts into a conclusion, I will just end before I get in too deep. I guess it's just something more to think about.