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carabiner96
Jan 22, 2007, 8:38 PM
Post #51 of 54
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Registered: Apr 10, 2006
Posts: 12610
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He's a self employed general practice lawyer in downeast maine. His clients aren't exactly a bunch of high rollers - they're lucky if they have all of their teeth.
He also does a lot of court appointed work which is only $50 an hour. I know- "only" - but a law firm has TONS of overhead - rent, office doo dads, the secretary, classes, lawyer stuff, travel around the state for court...by the time money has been put back into the office, there isn't much to bring home. Plus, we're a family of 6, 3 of them boys who are only going to eat more as they hit puberty.
He gets paid in furniture, fences, and lobster. Nice, but don't pay the insurance bills.
(This post was edited by carabiner96 on Jan 22, 2007, 8:41 PM)
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cracklover
Nov 9, 2011, 5:47 PM
Post #52 of 54
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Registered: Nov 14, 2002
Posts: 10162
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I just ran across this thread. Ah, memories.
So to wrap up all the loose ends, here's the rest of the story:
1 - I eventually got an MRI done, but that was several months after the injury, and by then none of the specialists could find anything certain.
2 - I bought the book One Move Too Many after reading Cellardoor's post http://www.rockclimbing.com/...ost=1523102;#1523102. Thanks, dude, I owe you BIGtime. This book, in conjunction with my own research on the web, gave me all the info I needed to diagnose and treat the injury, which was a partial tear of the A2 pulley.
All told it was about 6-9 months before I was fully on the road to recovery, and a year before I was back to 100% of where I'd been before the accident. And the net gain from between a dozen and two dozen visits to doctors was absolutely zero, aside from a DVD I now own with some cool MRI photos of my finger.
......
Interesting post-script: Five years after the injury that led to this thread, I injured my other ring finger. This time I went about things very differently.
1 - I diagnosed and treated myself:
Diagnosis - Based on the trauma and the symptoms, I had a full or near-full rupture of A-3 pulley, and possible slight partial tear of A-4.
Treatment - I fashioned appropriate devices for immobilization which I only used full-time at the very beginning, and then later used during more stressful activities. I completely stopped climbing. I did RICE, and therapy, in appropriate levels. And as things improved, I slowly got back into climbing.
2 - Despite this being a more severe injury (full or near full rupture of one pulley, rather than only partial tear, and possible involvement of a second pulley) my outcome was much better:
Money - I spent nothing on a useless medical establishment (although in fairness, I did run a few ideas past some good folks here online).
State of mind - I felt like I knew what to do, and had a course of action to follow. I didn't feel helpless and frustrated.
Time to recovery - It's only a little more than four months out from this injury, and I can now climb as much as I want, and am 80% of the way back to my previous climbing level. I fully expect to be 100% back by six months after the injury. That's half the time it took last time.
Lastly, it's kind of sad that I have a good job, a great insurance policy, and am not one of those people who dislikes ever going to the doctor, and yet the medical establishment, at least for this injury, is totally and completely useless to me. I have exactly zero medical training, and exactly zero medical equipment at my disposal, yet the diagnosis and treatment I get from my own hands and eyes is better than I'd get from the system.
Don't get me wrong, I've no doubt that there are people out there in the medical establishment who could have diagnosed and treated me perfectly in a single visit (at a relatively low cost to the health-care system). But, as they say, you can't get there from here. That, even despite the fact that my health-care coverage is probably in the top 1% in the country.
Just another data-point showing how our medical system is badly broken.
GO
(edited typos)
(This post was edited by cracklover on Dec 13, 2011, 6:43 PM)
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Allfred
Nov 10, 2011, 4:10 PM
Post #53 of 54
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Registered: Aug 29, 2011
Posts: 421
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I keep seeing the thread title and kept wondering why is he mad at the "fuck doctors?"
So finally I cracked and checked it out...
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IvanL
Jan 16, 2012, 8:55 PM
Post #54 of 54
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Registered: Dec 13, 2011
Posts: 6
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I had a pully tear in my left ring finger, got referred to a hand specialist straight away who had a splint made for my finger, gave me massage and exercises, after about 12 weeks it was nearly healed, (only problem is when I hold on to something when my pinky is left off, wierd) as good as it is ever going to get it seems (all free in NZ). I thought I was going to have a lot of trouble getting help from a doctor with that kind of injury but I was pretty happy.
On the flipside, last year I went into the emergency department with a back injury, they did x-rays and made sure I could feel my feet and said I would be fine, I complained about the pain a bit so they sent me on my way with a bunch of painkillers. I got a phone call 2 days later saying they had actually finally got round to showing my x-ray to a radiologist who pointed out that I had fractured my spine and probably shouldn't have been told to walk it off.
Couple of contrasting experiences, but for the most part dealing with doctors has been shithouse.
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