This is the building where my doctor lives, or at least practices medicine. It's building D, and it's dedicated to orthopaedics and rehab. I go upstairs, check in and then ...
... J and I park it in the first of several waiting rooms. This is the big lobby, where a cast of dozens sits in casts, braces, splints and bandages. Eventually a tech comes for me, and I wheel into the radiology waiting room (yes, my doc's office has it's own, fairly large radiology suite. How cool is THAT?). After my usual series of three x-rays (front, turned left and turned right), I'm wheeled out and ...
... now we're in waiting room #3 of the day. Each waiting room has gotten progressively smaller, and now we're in the little 10-seater. There are a number of doctors in this particular practice, and each group has its own internal waiting area. This is the area for Dr. G. Before too long, my lovely tech fetches me again and we're off to patient room 5. It's small and cozy, and J and I will be there hanging out for a while. Interestingly, my new x-rays have been put into the system already and are pulled up on the room's computer screen. I couldn't resist so ...
... voila! The inside of my broken left foot, views 1 through 3. Just in case you can't see all of my shiny new metal, I took a close up:
Note the ankle hardware from the '97 surgery, and the new foot screw holding things together from the '07 surgery. Pretty, no?
Dr. Gorczyca comes in at this point with his little entourage. Hands are shaken all around, and Dr. G asks what I've been up to. My answer: "Healing." The two orthopaedics groupies go over my case, look through my CT scan and previous x-rays. There is much oooh-ing and ahhh-ing but not in a good, "look-at-how-cool-this-is" way. Dr. G says "This was a very bad injury." I hate it when Dr. G, as chief orthopaedic resident, says that stuff. He looks through today's x-rays, and then ...
"IT'S HEALED." And just like that, the world opens up again. Dr. G believes that finally, 13 weeks after surgery, the bones are healed and in good position. He doesn't know how well I'll be able to walk, after all this: in the spirit of full disclosure, he tells me that walking may ALWAYS hurt. I may always limp. I may always need a cane. It's the way it is. However, I'm determined to get back as much as I can. And, you know, also procure the coolest canes I can possibly find.
So, I'm cleared for weight-bearing (just a little weight for now, increasing as we go), and PT will be twice a week. As a matter of fact, I'm starting PT tomorrow night: no time like the present and all that. Again, Dr. G has basically warned me that PT is going to be ... un-fun. I expect the pain, and it's ok. I'm sure I'll bitch about it, and hate it a lot, maybe even cry a little, but in the end it will teach me to walk again and to live again, so it's ultimately ok with me.
Dr. G wrote me a prescription for PT, and shook my hand. "You've made it. I know it was hard, but you did a good job. Congratulations, you're healed." And with those words, Dr. G and the G-ettes are off, and I'm on to the next phase of living.
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