Anyone who has ever gotten a prescription medication has also gotten a three page informational pamphlet with their drugs. You are told what the medication is, how to use the medicine, possible side effects , and cautions about the medicine, i.e. call your doctor if…..
With my orthopedist we did get the equivalent of what the medicine is – that is to say what he was going to be doing in surgery. I knew going into surgery I’d be getting a plate and a bunch of screws. If it were the spouse I would have also heard about how they were going to insert the plate and screws, the size of the screws, etc.. This is something I’m mildly curious about by the way as I have visions of my orthopedist wandering the aisles of OSH and then randomly pulling screws out of one of their cute little drawers. No matter though, as , should I be so inclined, I can watch the type of surgery I had on youtube.
What I’d really like though is a more thorough equivalent of the call your doctor if…section. Right after surgery the resident basically told me to keep my leg elevated but I did get a small instruction sheet outlining big ticket stuff – bleeding, redness or pus at the incision site and so on. As a side note I got a kick out of the “if you see redness or pus at the incision site, call your doctor right away”. Hmmm, my leg is in a huge honking cast, I won’t be seeing anything. What they should say is if your foot starts to smell like a zombie call us.
What is normal though a few weeks into the healing process? I want the equivalent of the reassuring voice over actor telling me you may experience the following symptoms, these are normal. If X occurs then seek immediate medical attention. For three days, I’d had constant pins and needles sensations in my foot and it was driving me bat…t crazy. Since I didn’t have reassuring voice over actor telling me whether this was normal or not I began to troll the internet. Ms. Self-effacer also ended up asking the OS’ office and it turns out that yes, pins and needles sensations are normal. Had they given me a sheet on what to expect while you are healing though I wouldn’t have felt silly contacting them. I’m convinced my medical record has a big hypochondriac note on the top. On another side note: I found out via the internet broken bone community that over elevating the leg can aggravate the pins and needles bit. As soon as I let my leg rest on the same level as my normal leg the pins and needles dissipated. Now I’m just awaiting the next “normal” symptom to come along. Happy, happy, joy, joy.
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