Late last summer my left elbow all at once began aching when I dressed and undressed or opened and closed a door.\u00a0 It groaned during light exercises, throbbed as I sat with bent arms poised over the computer keyboard, and wailed in the bleak hours of night.\u00a0 You can no longer deny it\u2019s a problem, I was told; go to the sports doctor; he\u2019s been ministering to college football and minor league hockey players for a generation.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The white-robed doctor walked in, his face a startling red, and ten seconds into my explanation said, \u201cI know what the problem is.\u00a0 We\u2019ll give you some cortisone and clear things up right away.\u201d<\/p>\n Surprisingly, I didn\u2019t ask for his diagnosis.\u00a0 I just said: \u201cGreat.\u201d<\/p>\n He stuck a big needle into the left elbow and readied to rush to his next patient.<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cWhat should I change?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t change anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about light shadow boxing?\u00a0 Seems like that might not be good.\u201d \u201cI must\u2019ve done something to cause this.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u00a0 I\u2019m sixty-two years old and run long distance and hurt all the time.\u201d he said, clapping my shoulder.<\/p>\n The following night my face lit up, brighter than the doctor\u2019s, and a rash began invading my neck.\u00a0 I tried to procrastinate but as facial heat escalated I eased into my car and drove to urgent care.<\/p>\n After checking in, I stripped to my shorts, donned a patient\u2019s gown, and was hooked to a heart monitor by a nurse\u2019s assistant.\u00a0 A tall stern woman, who could be cast as Ichabod Crane, appeared and announced credentials I didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m having a severe allergic reaction to cortisone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCortisone couldn\u2019t have caused this,\u201d she said, and issued a series of irritating questions.<\/p>\n \u201cLook,\u201d I said, dropping the gown, \u201cThe rash is spreading down my chest to my stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt couldn\u2019t have been cortisone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow it\u2019s crawling up my legs.\u201d<\/p>\n Several silent seconds later, I asked: \u201cAre you a doctor?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust a minute,\u201d she frowned, and wheeled out of the room.<\/p>\n The next person in, a man with a stethoscope around his neck, projected the scholarship of a physician, and acknowledged that while it\u2019s rare, some people are allergic to cortisone, assured me I wasn\u2019t going to die, and scribbled the name of an over the counter medication for rashes.\u00a0 The following day I called the nurse of the sports doctor and she said, \u201cYep, it can happen.\u201d\u00a0 No apology was offered.\u00a0 Must be protocol.\u00a0 The rashes worsened and I went to a dermatologist who opined that cortisone didn\u2019t cause the problem then prescribed a cream that, over a few months, controlled the outbreak.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, my elbow had quit hurting and felt like the smooth pivot of an eighteen-year old.\u00a0 It remained that way until about a month ago, when, I assume, the cortisone began dissipating.\u00a0 I returned to the ruddy sports doctor.<\/p>\n \u201cI recently went to a conference back East,\u201d he announced, \u201cand they said if the first cortisone shot doesn\u2019t work then we should follow with an MRI.\u201d<\/p>\n Alarmed that a specialist had only weeks before adopted this apparently basic sequence, I hastened to make an appointment.\u00a0 Three days later I entered a cavernous imaging facility where one by one a brigade of healthy young women, clad in uniform print blouses and white pants, checked me in at the front desk, greeted me in the waiting room, processed me in another room, questioned me another place, and instructed me to take off my pants somewhere else.\u00a0 If Magnetic Resonance Imaging didn\u2019t require specialist referral and cost more than a thousand bucks, minus insurance payments, this would be a fine place to spend Friday afternoons.\u00a0 But not as a patient.\u00a0 Only under medical compulsion would I again enter an MRI tube.\u00a0 I\u2019d been suspicious.\u00a0 By phone and in person they several times asked if I were claustrophobic.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve never been enclosed.\u00a0 Why?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome people have problems, but not many.\u201d<\/p>\n They told me the open MRI was more spacious.\u00a0 I selected it and was impressed by an antique-white machine indisputably large and modernistic.\u00a0 A motorized gurney-like device provided the horizontal rack for my body, and once equipped with ear plugs and stretched out in an appalling position somewhere between my stomach and side, the male technician \u2013 they use men for the rough stuff \u2013 pulled my arm straight out and put it elbow down in shackles, placed a bag of sand on top, locked the shackles, shoved a pillow under my head, said don\u2019t move for twenty, thirty, forty minutes, and pushed a button that conveyed me like bread into an oven.<\/p>\n With my ears plugged the whirring and popping of the machine weren\u2019t painful but I didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 In this impossible position I felt my arm could be torn from shoulder.\u00a0 And my hand soon swelled about a quarter larger than normal.\u00a0 Try to be still as possible, the technician ordered from behind his fort.\u00a0 I complied.\u00a0 Most other patients processed with me were in their seventies and eighties.\u00a0 It would\u2019ve been undignified to complain about aching body parts.\u00a0 I tried anyway, whimpering how much longer is this going to last?\u00a0 Knowing he hadn\u2019t heard, I braced myself with my right hand and burrowed my face into the pillow.\u00a0 Whenever the machine stopped whirring and popping I thought the technician was preparing to pull me out but the big tube was only idling, and the process proceeded and droned I don\u2019t know how long.<\/p>\n Ultimately, I was retrieved, unshackled, and taken to a recovery room where new pain ceased in minutes and the technician handed me a CD of the imaging.\u00a0 I delivered it to the nearby office of the sports doctor and set an appointment two weeks later.\u00a0 Ten days early, my phone rang.\u00a0 It was the secretary saying, \u201cDoctor has to change his schedule.\u00a0 Can you come in tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLet me check to make sure the radiologist sent his results.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid he give a diagnosis?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, here it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m anxious to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly Doctor can discuss this with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe they\u2019d noted alarming images of my left elbow.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t they have told me something?\u00a0 I\u2019m going to be tight till I know.\u00a0 It\u2019s not heart surgery, I tell myself.\u00a0 Be stoic.\u00a0 No, I don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 I want to feel good and pretend I\u2019ll forever be healthy and vigorous.\u00a0 I can\u2019t let this be the first inexorable step toward invalidism.\u00a0 Two bad elbows and I\u2019d feel like an octogenarian.\u00a0 If the knees went, I\u2019d be helpless.\u00a0 Maybe they can take care of what\u2019s wrong.\u00a0 Maybe I can be almost like I was.\u00a0 But what if I can\u2019t?<\/p>\n Into the office I stepped Thursday afternoon, examining the secretary\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 Was she trying to conceal knowledge of my condition?<\/p>\n \u201cYou can tell me now, if you want.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll know in about fifteen minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n In five an assistant led me into an empty room and said, \u201cVery soon now.\u201d I began reading about a female golfer who shortly after joining the tour had gained sixty pounds and strained her back.\u00a0 Soaring scores threatened to relegate her to a mundane job, but she counterattacked with diet, exercise, and longer blond hair \u2013 like the once corpulent, crew-cut, and frowning Jack Nicklaus \u2013 and has transformed herself into a tournament-winning, model-like star who earns millions a year and acquires stylish homes, noteworthy art, and fine wines.\u00a0 I was ready to drift into this world when the ruddy doctor, whose coloring I\u2019m adjusting to, came in and said, \u201cThat elbow\u2019s really screwed up.\u201d<\/p>\n Wonderful.\u00a0 I tried to remember the medical details but can only state a tendon is damaged and needs repair along with bone underneath and nerves in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u00a0 It\u2019s an outpatient procedure.\u00a0 Surgery\u2019s only fifteen minutes.\u00a0 But we\u2019ve got to put you out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly fifteen minutes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMost guys need a half hour but I\u2019ve done so many of these.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow long will I be in pain?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes about six months to feel right again.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow long for the bad pain?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, only a couple of days.\u00a0 You could have it done on a Friday and be back at work Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFine, let\u2019s set it up for June twenty-seventh.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Late last summer my left elbow all at once began aching when I dressed and undressed or opened and closed a door.\u00a0 It groaned during light exercises, throbbed as I sat with bent arms poised over the computer keyboard, and wailed in the bleak hours of night.\u00a0 You can no longer deny it\u2019s a problem,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[387,118],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n