A dozen or more years ago Dr. Harold Portnoy repaired a disc in my back. Since then I have diagnosed myself, each and every ache, pain or catch in my back.
I thought I was doing pretty good at self-doctoring until my left leg started going numb when I stood still very long.
Ibuprofen, aspirin and some pain pills prescribed following that long ago back operation (I never throw out a pill.) didn’t bring back life to my left limb.
Back to Dr. Portnoy. Pose for an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) of my knee, ’cause the good doctor doesn’t think my problem is in the back. After reading the MRI report I’m told my knee is a piece of crap.
On to Dr. Jeffrey DeClaire. Pose for x-rays. Ah, but wait. It took some weeks to get this appointment, during which time the typed-out MRI report and disc lay on my dining table. I was to take them to my appointment.
One day I decided to read the MRI findings. There’s a tear in my inferior and superior articular surface and a horizontal component. I have a joint effusion, but no muscle tear. I have a cartilage defect, cyst, spurring of the tibial spines and cartilage defect in a lower joint.
I have no idea what any of that stuff is, but the diagnosis that raised my fears, that chilled my spine and raised my hackles is this finding: ‘There is a cystic structure in the posterior aspect of Hoffa’s Fat Pad.?
Jimmy Hoffa’s Fat Pad! What the heck is he doing in my knee? My mind went wild. Did his killers turn him into fat to be distributed in people’s knees? How?
Since the whole conclusion is printed in capital letters I reasoned that FAT and PAD were acronyms.
My now-twirling mind suggested, Favorite American Teamster and Floating Alpha Testosterone.
And, perhaps PAD stood for Presumed Alive in Detroit or Peripheral Anterior Discharge.
Dr. DeClaire cleared it up for me as best he could. Seems we all have a fat pad, a pad of fat, on the side of our knees, and the Hoffa name comes from a Dr. Hoffa who he learned about way back in medical school.
The doctor at least gave me a smile for my thinking a Teamster connection.
My next appointment is with an electrician who is going to attach some wires to my back so I can get high definition reception on my retina, or is it cornea? Ah, another worry.
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Observations from a professional clicker: Every time I sit down to watch anything on tv I have two programs in mind. If there’s a ball game on, any kind, I’ll have Law & Order, Comedy Central, Vanna, Two and a Half Men or something on the ready for any break in the game action.
Invariably, a commercial will be airing at that break time. How can that be? Gumperson’s Law? Nerd timers? Enemies who know they can get to me without going through the courts?
I understand why and how commercial timing for sit-coms, movies, mystery shows, game shows, newscasts and talk shows can be identical. No one wants to give any advantage to the other. But, how do they know when a baseball game is going to have an inning end?
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How beautiful can it be to do nothing, then rest afterwards?
Wrinkled is not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.