A revolving-door saga of being bounced from one doctor to another
Musings
Sonia Kelly
The saga of my broken wrist seemed unending, binding me forever to the clinic of Mr X in Castlebar.
I have described previously how it began with a fall in my bedroom due to being trapped inside a jersey and subsequently developing this painful condition and ending up in the said clinic. The initial visit to A&E entailed an X-ray and an assessment by a doctor who said it showed a small break. He bound up my wrist with something inflexible and arranged a future date – with Mr X?
Meanwhile I had discarded the strapping as the pain in my wrist had subsided and my fingers had resumed their normal tingling, due to carpal tunnel syndrome. Disappointingly, the next encounter did not feature Mr X, but Mr Somebody Else, who said he could see no sign of a break on the X-ray, but just to make sure he’d book me in for a scan – at a future date, of course…
Duly had the scan. Still no sign of Mr X and another visit was arranged. So – another new doctor, who had never previously heard of me, appeared puzzled and sent for the scan. It transpired that the scan had disappeared without a trace, so he decided I should go to some expert in Galway – perhaps to have my hand off, I thought.
Well, okay, here we go again… This doctorial episode turned out to be quite dramatic – not an amputation, but electric shocks. My hand was wired to a machine, which, when switched on caused me to jump and say ‘ouch!’. This happened several times.
Then the doctor consulted the machine’s verdict, and said an operation was fairly urgent.
A month later another summons to Mr X’s clinic arrived – presumably for the operation. I went. Again a different doctor, who had just received my data. He flicked through it and disappeared.
He came back with another new person – a tall man in a suit. Can it be? It is! The mythical Mr X.
It’s love at first sight! He holds my hand and strokes it, ignoring the file and making his own diagnosis. “just a minor procedure,” he murmers. “Come back on…”
“Will you be doing the operation,” I ask hopefully.
“Oh, that’s the day I do real operations at the main building,” he says. “But I’ll try to get to you, darling.”
Readers, can you imagine how my heart lurched? I wasn’t going to hold my breath, though, going by past experience.
Anyhow, once more a long-suffering member of the family delivered me to the clinic – is this the ninth time? I’ve lost count.
And – hey, folks – he DID do the operation, which entailed scissors, swabs, lots of blood, two other doctors and a nurse. “Am I bleeding to death?” I enquired at one stage.
“Darling, you’re doing fine,” was the answer, making me feel fine, naturally, in every way.
“Get the stitches out in two weeks and come back here in two months,” were his final instructions, as he delegated the stitching, swabbing and post-tramautic conversation to his team.
I expected my fingers to stop tingling there and then. But no. Had the stitches out. Still no improvement. The two months passed – nothing. At that point and much as I yearned to see the darling Mr Z again, I decided to forego the pleasure, which would have been my 12th visit to a doctor in connection to what was carpal tunnel syndrome all along.
Of course, it might all have been due to my own invariably negative reaction to any treatment which is supposed to do me any good…
