🎧 Listen to Sarah read this installment of Cured.
Within a week, hobbling in the boot has become familiar but no less tedious. I’m able to click along at a fairly good pace. This, of course, goes against the very point of the boot. The boot is meant to immobilize so my broken foot can heal.
I enter the waiting room of the osteopath I was assigned in Immediate Care. After checking in, I sit amidst the other patients. Some are in casts, others in braces, and others in splints. Some show no sign of having been injured.
According to Dr. Patel’s profile on the hospital website, he’s certified by the American Osteopathic Board of Orthopedic Surgery. Foot and ankle fractures are his specialties. He has eight hundred and twenty-three ratings which average 4.8 stars.
I never thought to find reviews of any of the psychiatrists I saw. One psychiatrist is connected to this same hospital. I look him up. His profile shows he’s certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. His profile has no star ratings.
Another of my psychiatrist’s profiles is tied only to the private practice he’s associated with. It links to his CV, which is replete with licensures, certifications, trainings, honors, and awards. No star ratings there either.
My current psychiatrist, Dr. R, is also affiliated with this hospital. His profile doesn’t even have his photo. No bio, just where he got his Ph.D. and M.D. His profile lists his publications, the titles of which are so scientifically specific they’re like gobbledygook: DNA/RNA-binding protein, chick aggrecan, ubiquitin-mediated degradation. If I’d gone by his profile, would I have chosen him? Probably not, but he’s the best I’ve seen.
The nurse calls my name. I limp assertively behind her. She walks slowly to accommodate me. I want to tell her I’m fine. I’m healing. We can go faster.
She shows me to the examination room. Eventually, Dr. Patel comes in with a resident in tow. The resident looks so young he could be fresh out of college. Dr. Patel is handsome, confident but not arrogant, caring but brusque. The clock on our appointment time is clearly ticking. He clicks the keyboard, and soon the x-ray of my broken ankle is on screen. The two of them consult.
Dr. Patel helps me out of the boot, touches various spots, and asks me if it hurts. It does, but I don’t want to say so. I want out of the boot. I want to be healed.
“You don’t need surgery,” Dr. Patel says. “Six more weeks and we’ll see how you’re doing.”
Panic rises in my chest. “Six weeks in the boot?”
Dr. Patel explains his reasoning at length. I’ve torn ligaments too, and those take longer to heal. I look to the resident as if for help, but he just smiles.
Dr. Patel says I can get a second opinion. He says this easily and without malice.
A second opinion? In a couple of months, I’ll read advice from Dr. Allen Frances, one of the most powerful figures in psychiatry. In his book Saving Normal, he’ll stress the importance of getting a second opinion whenever you see a psychiatrist. I’d never thought of it. No one recommended I do. This is, of course, a luxury, especially in our overcrowded mental health system, but I wish I would have thought that way.
I shake my head. I trust Dr. Patel. It’s a feeling.
“You’ll be out of that boot soon enough,” he says.
As I hobble to the elevator, my foot seems to hurt more than it did when I came in. Six weeks. But it will heal. Dr. Patel said as much. You’ll be out of that boot soon enough. He’ll track my progress as my ankle goes from broken to healed.
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