My Afternoon with Jesus

Now that I got your attention with that blog entry title.

No, this is not going to be a piece on religion.  But, it might as well be.  Because, frankly, God, I am totally done with this knee injury business.

But, I digress...

As I left the office of my orthopaedist last Tuesday, I strangely harkened back to a conversation I had when I last went to the movies.  I walked up to the box office and said...

"Two please for the Iron Lady."

The response back?

"Thank you.  Enjoy the show."

That exchange of dialogue might have been longer than the one I had with my ortho doctor the other day.

But what do you expect when you deal with guys who, on their worst days, think they really have the healing powers of Jesus Christ himself?

As I mentioned on previous days, arthritis has set into my left knee, after living a solitary life for years in my right knee.  The morning pain was enough for me to revisit the magical world of Kerlan-Jobe, doctors to the Los Angeles Dodgers and the inventors of the famed Tommy John Surgery.

Now, the obvious advantage to seeing folks at Kerlan-Jobe is that they are very, very, very good at what they do.  The less-than-obvious disadvantage to seeing folks at Kerlan-Jobe is that they know how very, very, very good they are at what they do.  Add to this the common operational hazard of having a God complex and you get the picture of what my afternoon was like.

With a twice-daily dosage of Celebrex only having moderate success and recent pain on Super Bowl Sunday that made the afternoon worse for me than it was for Tom Brady, I was ready for some healing.  And I had completely psyched myself up for the dreaded cortisone shot.

Cortisone and I have had brief but torturous encounters in the past.  The last time I took the needle, I literally passed out on the table.  Only waving the pricey bill in front of me was I able to be revived.  But, still, if an injection was going to give me some instant relief in my left "formerly good but now not so much" knee, I was all set.  I had brought my Black Berry along if I needed something to bite down on.

Of course, actually getting past the front door is adventure enough at Kerlan-Jobe.  Being as very, very, very good as they are, they have quite the clientele.  Surveying the waiting area, I saw lots and lots of Botox in action.  I checked the front door again to make sure I was in the right doctor's office.  Meanwhile, everybody approaching the front desk with their insurance cards seemed to be in some show business union.  SAG.  WGA.  AFTRA.  Me?  I was sporting AETNA, which is the official insurance company for nobodys.

With only a TV in the waiting area for diversion, I sat through one full episode of "General Hospital" and one half-hour of that asshole Dr. Oz before I got called into the inner sanctum.  Summoned into an examining room, I was asked to put on some paper shorts for the requisite photo opportunity in front of the X-ray machine.  I wondered if this attire had been washed previously.  I thought I saw the words "San Quentin" stenciled on the back.

More waiting inside the examining room as I waited for the arrival of my savior.  Should I prepare for him by laying down some palm fronds?  Or maybe, like in Ben-Hur, I should first offer him a cup of water in the middle of a busy afternoon?

My doctor flung open the door like Loretta Young and his aura pervaded not just the room but most of Wilshire Boulevard outside.  He asked me if I had a nice Christmas.  I was tempted for a moment to say "Happy Birthday."  But, I refrained.  Let's just commence with the healing, please.  And, oh, yeah, I'm all ready for that cortisone, Lord.

My doctor asked if he had ever injected cortisone in my left knee.  I said, no, this would be your virgin visit there and I noted yet another Biblical alley I could wander down.  The X-rays clearly showed a bit of a white cloud around the bottom part of my knee.  That was either arthritis or confirmation that there is a new Pope. 

Yes, I have arthritis now in my left knee.  Duh.  I could have figured that out if I had stayed in the waiting room with that quack Oprah discovered.  So, what are you going to do about it, Jesus, I mean, Doc?

Just when I thought he was going to open the door for the sharpest object I have ever seen in my life, he asked me to lay back.  He wanted to flex me a bit to see just what was going on.  He pumped my knee several times like Helen Keller trying to get water in "The Miracle Worker."  Then, he pushed my knee back to my chest and started to fondle the back of my knee.

OUCH!!!!

A-ha.  This may be a torn meniscus.

He told me this would require a MRI.  Apparently, Jesus cannot see through skin.  I was to stay on the Celebrex and then report back with the "Maybe Really Injured" results.

I walked out of the office with the same pain that I had when I came in.  Meanwhile, he was already gone.  Off to the next village to heal whoever.

So, why are we treating this injury as a single entity?  Could we not have dealt with the arthritis pain and the possibly torn meniscus separately?  And where the heck is my shot, please????

Unfortunately, none of that could have been covered in the three minutes and twenty-nine seconds he spent with me.

Like all religions, we get answers.  But, sometimes, we are left with lots more questions.

Dinner last night:  Frittata with bacon, tomatoes, and Asiago cheese.