My experiences with the doctor in the hospital in Rotterdam were quite disappointing. Luckily, the waiting list on another hospital got shorter every week, and after two months finally I arrived at the city of Woerden, at the best orthopaedic and rheumatic centre of the Netherlands.
The doctor walked towards me, with a broad smile and an extended hand. “Hi!”, she said, and wasted no time by immediately starting asking questions: “Why are you here? I can see you already visited a doctor who gave you a diagnosis, so what can I do for you then?”
I told her my story: how I was full of doubts and insecurities after returning from Beijing, how my experience with the doctor in Rotterdam was disappointing, how I was not yet fine with the message that ‘nothing can be done on your situation’ and how I still had no idea what I could expect in the nearer and farther future, which kept me from making life plans.
The doctor listened visibly surprised by the acts of her ‘colleague’ but seemed without judgement about my story. She had a sincere and ’no-nonsense’ vibe coming off of her. She just said: “Well, let's take a look then, starting with new X-Ray pictures and a fresh MRI, since this one you have brought me from Beijing is already a few months old."
“REALLY?!” I thought, almost ecstatic. The first thing she does is the one thing I wished the other doctor had done for me. I started feeling hopeful again and knew that even if her treatment plan would be the same as the one before (ie, ’there’s nothing we can do for you’), I would at least feel heard.
So then and there I was scheduled for some tests, and a few weeks later I would return to her office to hear the verdict.
Nervously, I listened: “I’ve found no necrosis, although I can imagine the other doctors making this mistake. It really does look similar! But when I look at the X-Ray I noticed something weird.”
Here she showed me a picture on her computer of my ankle.
[This is the first post on Steemit where I don't add a picture I took myself. It is however, a picture from my private collection ;-)]
“See? Something seems to stick out on your bone, almost as if a part of the bone got busted. It’s not broken but definitely looks like a little hook sticking out.”
I looked at the X-Ray. An untrained eye can barely distinguish anything on a picture like this. It’s all greys and whites, but indeed, something seemed to stick out of the talus bone of my foot.
She then explained to me what this meant: the sticking part of the bone got damaged, probably from trauma. I immediately knew when and what happened, since I’d experienced my first pains on steps of stairs in Russia.
This ‘hook’ on my bone is just a tiny tiny thing, but apparently this ’scrapes’ off the cartilage in the other bone opposite of the talus. This causes nasty pains, since cartilage is needed to prevent the harder ‘original’ bones to rub onto each other.
In the end, all this sticking and scraping hurting caused damage also known as arthrosis in the left foot.
“Can this piece of bone be removed?”, me and my boyfriend asked, surprised by the sudden change in diagnosis, and therefore again hopeful. This story seemed way less daunting then necrosis, which you could also describe as… ‘dead bone’. A little hook on a bone seemed way more innocent.
Unfortunately, the little hook appeared to be a wolf in sheep clothing. To even reach this little hook in the middle of many other bones the risk of damaging more bones and causing even more arthrosis… Was not an option.
The only solution for now was and is: prevent the whole foot from ‘unrolling’. The scraping of the hook would be less, which meant all the bruising and cartilage damage could ‘heal’, which would lessen my pain.
The End! You would think. But I would return to the doctor soon…
All pictures on steemit.com/@soyrosa are created and edited by me, Rosanne Dubbeld, 2001-2018. Contact me if you want to discuss licensing or collaborations on creative projects :-)
Ok so now the pain you have in your foot is making much more sense to me. I'm glad you put the hyperlink referrals in it to your other posts so I can understand the bigger picture of your injury. Gosh we are such fragile creatures. I'm so sorry you had to cancel your travel plans.
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I really appreciate you! Taking the time to try to understand the story :-) Gosh it seems like ages ago I wrote this, but the aftermath of it all took me a good two years, and after those years I found Steem and was finally able to sort of make sense of it all :-) Yes, it's all really fragile, just literally 1 step went wrong Shrugs. I'm actually thinking about traveling again, it just will involve less walking and more recovery days - I got my drivers license a few months ago which I never thought I wanted/needed (in my city and around I can do everything by amazing public transport) but now it will enhance my freedom of movement a lot!
Can't we just laser it away? You need happy feet!!
Yes, I DO need happy feet! I've decided to just ask for a fourth opinion every two-three years, you never know what knowledge they gather in the meantime :-)
wish you well and to find relief...
Thanks a lot @battleaxe! I will find some relief and tell about it in future posts :-)
I really hate that hook :(
Haha, sometimes I imagine it being there in my foot, and I think: "Really? Is that small thing causing all this pain?" But yeah, it's like a mosquito keeping you awake at night, size is not always relevant for the amount of grieve they can cause ;-)
i'm hooked, want to read what has happened next Oo
You do have a crazy story!
I hope it will disappear fully :)
How are you atm? ^^
Haha, thanks! Glad my story is something you want to know more about! I've been revalidating for a year and have made some progress! It's still a matter of 'counting steps' and being careful about the things I do, but I can live with it now :-) Thanks for asking and I will share more stories this week for sure!
That such a hook sucks so much :( I hope they will find a solution! Maybe someday operation will be possible!
yikes, it's time for a good solution for this so you can dance with those happy feet!!
Hope this hook will go away, it's not a nice one at all... I hope you will heal and get rid of the pain.
I hope you will get well as soon as possible!
As always I wish you all the health, and a speedy recovery.
I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one on Steemit going through medical mystery hell (but I'm sorry that you're experiencing this). That's awesome that this new doctor made you feel heard - to me, that's almost as important as the diagnosis. Fingers crossed you keep getting better and better information and treatment!
Haha, indeed! Writing about medical adventures is a good way to recover? Having the right doctor is super important and changes how you feel about your situation...
I found writing about my adventures very cathartic! And yes, the right doctor makes all the difference - I've been lucky with that 99% of the time. That other 1% though - ugh!
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@soyrosa veel beterschap toegewenst, hugs
Dankjewel Jack Johannes :-)
what a roller coaster. don't keep us waiting too long for the next installment.
I won't! Todays' #haturday was a welcome distraction for a day, but I'll soon post the follow-up! :D Thanks for taking the time to read back some posts!
Nice post
I am wishing you all the best girl, and this whole damn thing to be done soon!!!!! :*
i like your post.briliant job.carry on.i follow you,please follow me back and help me