Desperation

At my wits end and pretty much desperate, I decided to go see a chiropractor. The source of my injury was being over looked by orthopedics, so giving into desperation I thought maybe a chiropractor could figure it out. That idea lasted for about a week. The chiropractor did their hokie tests and gave me some half scientific explanation of what my problem was. Believe it or not they told me that the reason my foot hurt was cause my lower back and hips were out of alignment. They thought they just solved my problem. Cutting edge scientific equipment and the best specialized doctors misdiagnosed me, but with the chiropractors sketchy x-ray machine and some poking at my back they solved it? Of course, to really solve this problem they recommended 18 visits to get me back into alignment. How did they magically come up with 18 visits as the right number for me to be cured?... Still trying to figure that one out. I will admit though, pure hope and desperation drove me to agree to their 18 visits. After about the first three, I realized I had made a mistake. Unfortunately, I had paid up front for the visits to get a discount and couldn’t get my money back…chiropractor equals fail.

The chiropractor debacle drove me even further into frustration. The pain in my foot was still present almost all the time. My next step was to go back to where I started… my first orthopedic doctor. It had been six months since I last saw this doctor. I caught her up to speed on my adventures through the foot saga. I had high hopes that this time she would really be able to figure out what was going on. I had an MRI and x-rays which she could use, but my hopes were soon crushed… as always. At this point, my experience talking to doctors was like déjà vu. Every time I would try and convince them to look beyond the obvious diagnosis and treat my foot with a little more aggression. Once again I told my doctor about my theory of a variation of a Lisfranc injury. I even showed her a gap between my big and second toe that would form upon weight bearing. To me, this physical deformity was the key signal that something beyond a bone-marrow edema was wrong with my foot. My thoughts and reasoning for this injury were swept to the side. I believe my doctors saw me a young kid to not be taken seriously. This meant my doctor did not listen to me, and instead thought physical therapy would help. Frustrated, I participated in physical therapy twice a week for two months. I mostly did this to appease my doctor and show her that it would do nothing to heal my injury. Who would have thought, I was right. Physical therapy did nothing, and actually caused me more pain than not. The only thing physical therapy did was make me sound more like a broken record. I told my physical therapist about the gap between my toes, the location of my pain, and what made it worsen. Most of all I told him about my theory of a Lisfranc injury. As always, I got the look that said “yeah…yeah…ok kid. Sorry but you don’t know anything”.