PatKelley
16th December 2005, 01:24 AM
I've just finished talking with a friend at work. She's had a rotator cuff injury that's been corrected surgically and is now going through the routine of recovery and physical therapy.
Now she's been telling me that another fellow in the office claims he had his "cured" nonsurgically with "electrical impulses" and physical therapies in less than six weeks.
I started talking to her about this, as I think she was all set to start resenting her doctor. She was in pain before the surgery, and is still in some discomfort now because of the surgery at seven weeks. Fortunately I've been talking to her for a while now, and she's come to trust me a bit mostly because I'll send her factual websites and good solid reference materials.
So I started asking her about this fellow. Wasn't he the one who was against fluoridating the water because it caused some kind of "bad" influence on body chemistry? Do you think he had the same diagnosis and went through an MRI to fully develop a picture of the soft tissue injury if he's this scared of fluoridation?
Then I asked her if she trusted her doctor, and if she was genuinely curious to ask him if there was "another" treatment she could have tried. Otherwise, what were the opinions of her physical therapist and doctor on her level of recovery? She's ahead of the curve by a wide margin. She's recovered a greater range of motion than expected in a short period of time.
So it was mostly bringing back to a perspective more grounded in reality: she might be worse off now, she might have had worse damage than this other fellow, and somehow his "year" of therapy has now turned into "six weeks." He's not a doctor, he is not the kind to trust anyone who would use methods that would make him uncomfortable, and he's more of a "magical" thinker. Besides, she can ask. The doctor will answer her truthfully; he's also got a hippocratic oath and a certification to worry about. What has the other office worker got on the line if he's wrong?
Anyway, it is the idea of false one-upmanship that I find grating. He went and turned his "therapy" into a more effective treatment while not realizing or not caring that he was destroying the confidence and recovery of someone who is doing really well. More concerned with being "right" and his therapy being "better" than any kind of concern for the welfare of his friend.
I'll just go and vote that homeopathy is evil, now that I think about it.
Now she's been telling me that another fellow in the office claims he had his "cured" nonsurgically with "electrical impulses" and physical therapies in less than six weeks.
I started talking to her about this, as I think she was all set to start resenting her doctor. She was in pain before the surgery, and is still in some discomfort now because of the surgery at seven weeks. Fortunately I've been talking to her for a while now, and she's come to trust me a bit mostly because I'll send her factual websites and good solid reference materials.
So I started asking her about this fellow. Wasn't he the one who was against fluoridating the water because it caused some kind of "bad" influence on body chemistry? Do you think he had the same diagnosis and went through an MRI to fully develop a picture of the soft tissue injury if he's this scared of fluoridation?
Then I asked her if she trusted her doctor, and if she was genuinely curious to ask him if there was "another" treatment she could have tried. Otherwise, what were the opinions of her physical therapist and doctor on her level of recovery? She's ahead of the curve by a wide margin. She's recovered a greater range of motion than expected in a short period of time.
So it was mostly bringing back to a perspective more grounded in reality: she might be worse off now, she might have had worse damage than this other fellow, and somehow his "year" of therapy has now turned into "six weeks." He's not a doctor, he is not the kind to trust anyone who would use methods that would make him uncomfortable, and he's more of a "magical" thinker. Besides, she can ask. The doctor will answer her truthfully; he's also got a hippocratic oath and a certification to worry about. What has the other office worker got on the line if he's wrong?
Anyway, it is the idea of false one-upmanship that I find grating. He went and turned his "therapy" into a more effective treatment while not realizing or not caring that he was destroying the confidence and recovery of someone who is doing really well. More concerned with being "right" and his therapy being "better" than any kind of concern for the welfare of his friend.
I'll just go and vote that homeopathy is evil, now that I think about it.