Just a Thought

I have decided to avoid getting into the health care debate. I just don’t know enough, it is too complex and I have too many other things in my life to which I can and must attend. I do have a story to tell, however, about my back. A pundit’s comment remind me of that old ache and caused that proverbial of light bulb to go off

Years ago I worked at the United Way of Allen County as the VP of Marketing. It was during that period when the great powerful guy at the top of the organization had been caught red-handed dipping into the candy jar. I was pushed out front to explain that. Not long afterwards we lost our president, fired, and a member of the board had taken over to keep the ship afloat. It was a hard time. Without a stead hand at the tiller the local organization was coming apart at the stitches.

Part of the fallout from those turbulent, stressful times was an investment in a case of Tums which I associate with the organizational mayhem, and an increasingly bad back which I did not. For the bad back I went to a family doctor who referred me to a specialist at a northeast side orthopedics clinic. They shot ex-rays, talked with me, studied my back, poked, prodded and decided an epidural block, a shot of pain killer in the spin, was the place to start. That, failing to solve the problem, led to a second shot. And, that failing to resolve the problem led to a consultation with a doctor at the clinic. He told me the next step was to cut a hole in my hip, strip off a bit of bone (aargh) from my beloved skeleton, then cut a hole in my back and use the strip of bone to fuse two vertebrae together. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. The charming young doctor suggested that my range of movement would be dramatically limited, but that I would learn to live with it. AAAAAAAAAAARGH.

I demurred. Nope, I said, bravely, I would prefer to try therapy first. The doctor was not happy and pressed me, explained the situation and the process again and encouraged me to permanently limit my range of movement. “You’ll learned to live with it.”

I wasn’t sold, so I picked up a list of therapists and found the name of a German woman there on. I am biased toward Germans, especially the women, but I also had read many times that in the German health care system they took a longer term approach to recovery and eschewed the knife until all other avenues had been tried. Hmmmmm. Another point in their favor. I called her, set up an appointment and nine months later I could dance again. Polka, waltz, no tango, quite yet, just the basics. When I started therapy I could barely get out of my bed, into pants or pull socks on. A shock went up my spine and across my hip whenever I moved too quickly. I learned to love ADA ramps. I could not step off of curbs without a shock of pain. The door of my car was bent from pulling myself out. Sitting in my office chair was an exercise in concentrating beyond the constant pain. Typing was done carefully to avoid sudden shocks. It hurt.

The therapy, and abruptly quitting the job at the United Way, resolved the back problem and 20 some years later I still can dance a good polka and may go to Argentina this winter to learn the tango. Timothy Ferris recommends it.

My point is medicine is a business and the owners of the orthopedic clinic pressed me to have an operation I did not need. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Their business model, making their house payments, sending the kids to college, dinner, the water bill, all of that depended upon a steady flow of people into their surgery suites. They could not help but be biased toward that form of care, that diagnosis, that treatment, whether therapy was a better alternative or not. Their bottom line depended upon performing surgery.

So, when the debate swirls over health care I have no idea what changes to make, but I know the current system means that surgeons will recommend surgery because that is what they do and that is what pays their bills, not necessarily because it is the right treatment for you.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 9:52 am and is filed under Health & Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.