Conveyor belt to limbo
My knee aches a little at the moment, having walked on and off about a mile today, between the hospital, my apartment and a couple of Skytrain stations. It's on the mend, mostly as a result of rest, Diclofenac and liberally-applied bags of frozen peas to reduce the tightness and inflammation.
St. Louis Hospital in Bangkok is a well-respected hospital that specialises in osteopathy. I went there with the results of Thursday's MRI scan on a CD-R to meet a surgeon who, I was told, could probably do an arthroscopy this week, as had been recommended to me. What a contrast to the knee surgeon I already know and like: this new doctor seemed in a hurry to get me out of his office. Each answer to each question he asked was quickly interrupted with another question, and he stopped me twice more to take phone calls. I could not get my knee's history across to him. Without even looking at my knee he diagnosed inflammation around the patella (kneecap), which is not at all where the pain has been. He didn't even look at the MRI images or the medical notes I brought for him. He thinks an arthroscopy will be a waste of time (by which he possibly means his time). Finally he got me up on a bench and prodded my knee without bending it, and announced he could see fluid accumulation above the patella, even though it looks exactly the same there as it always has. He gave me a cortisone injection to bring down the inflammation and asked me to come back the following Monday. Next patient, please.
I already feel like I'm wasting my time and money here. First I'm told I'll need an arthroscopy because the MRI shows the knee joint needs rectifying. A second opinion contradicts that, with the rationale that cortisone will be enough to allow the knee to heal itself. I'll allow a couple of days to give the cortisone a chance, but I'll certainly be speaking again to the specialist at Samitivej Hospital. I've already sidelined myself from the teacher training course because my knee was so painful it had become too great a distraction and I was told it would need surgery sooner rather than later, and now I feel like I've been sidelined again from getting that treatment. Where I am today is not at all where I imagined I'd be, a couple of weeks ago.