i want to apologize

I WANT TO APOLOGIZE

www.zazzle.com

sometimes until youve walked in someone shoes
you really dont know what something is really like

as a doctor i havent walked in peoples shoes when
they came in to see me but i usually had seen a lot of
patients with that problem and had used the experience
of taking care of similar cases and reading up on the
problem to know how to best take care of them

thats called clinical experience but as i realized
this time until youve walked in their shoes you really
dont know what its like

for example when my mother was diagnosed with alzheimers
disease and possibly my father had it then my brother was
diagnosed with it i understood what it was like dealing with
the disease
before then i really wasnt much help with people who were diagnosed or
family members who had to deal with the day to day of living
with a loved one with the disease

now im starting to walking in their shoes and every day i think
about how much better job i could have done carrying for them
had i known what i know now about alzheimers disease

i now try to talk to as many people as i can about the disease
and what to do and what can be done to somehow compensate
for my lack of knowledge when i was in practice

now im walking in another pair of shoes that i wish i had walked in
when i was in practice

thats people who would come in with severe sciatica
for those who dont know
sciatica is pain of the sciatica nerve from the spine down to the
big toe
in severe cases the pain can extend the whole nerve and can be
quite severe

yes i wish i had walked in their shoes before i was practicing and
i would have done a much better job controlling your pain and
discomfort
and would have been more compassionate

there are many causes
a ruptured disc
an arthritic spur that is pushing on the nerve
a narrowed opening that the nerve goes through
a hematoma
a cyst
a tumor
or rarely inflammation from a spinal tap

(if youve read my blogs lately i wrote one about ouuuuuuccccchh when
i had my spinal tap as i felt a shot of pain down my sciatic nerve that only
lasted a second and had no residual discomfort from it
sciatica from a spinal tap is rare
i just hope im not that rare event
you know these usually happen to doctors or nurses or their family members)

so i started walking in your shoes last wednesday and i didnt enjoy it much
at all
as i got to where i couldnt walk
not sure how i drove my truck wish it wasnt a stick shift or how i managed
to climb up my stairs as i knew thats where my hydrocodone was i had
left over from my wisdom teeth extraction
i also added 1500 mgm of naprosyn and a lot of tylenol arthritis but after
a few hours of no relief i gave up and
told my wife she i need to go to the er

i felt like i was having a kidney stone that was in my sciatica nerve

(i looked like those guys who were in that video i posted recently
that was hooked up to an electrical stimulator on their abdomens to see
what labor was like)

i crawled backwards down my stairs and out the door and onto the
driveway to the car
sure hope my wife she didnt take any pictures
i even did my lamaze training and even did my hehes which seemed to help

in the er at seton williamson county they took me right in
im sure i looked like i was about to birth a baby
heck you never know now a days right

all the staff there were nice and pleasant and compassionate
even the young doctor who could easily have been my grandson

they upped my hydrocodone and valiumed me up
after awhile i was slightly improved
he offered iv morphine for relief but i decided against it

so for the next 5 days i stayed stoned and really seemed to have
missed a lot of what when on around me
heck i even read some emails i wrote that i asked my wife she
did you answer these for me
nope she said

so i went to my regular doctor yesterday who has personally walked
in your sciatica shoes and probably is the best at taking care of this
pain
he switched me to a tapering dose of prednisone and placed me on lyrica
which is used for nerve pain and continued the hydrocodone for pain
i discontinued the tylenol and the naprosyn
i am only rarely using the hydrocodone
i now today am 100% better in 24 hours

thanks to dr b for his knowledge and care

so finally
yes i want to personally apologize to any of you that i treated for
sciatica and did not do an adequate job

im not enjoying the walk at all
and find it all a humbling experience

please forgive me

the organicgreen doctor