When the long-awaited doctor visit disappoints

An unexpected gift of Native American flute music helps

You know how sometimes you look forward to a doctor’s appointment thinking you will get answers, and they will fix whatever is giving you pain? And then they don’t?

Do I hear a chorus of yes, yes, yes, that happened to me? Of course. Our medical system is berserk. You can wait months or years to get properly diagnosed and treated in 15-minute appointments that frequently accomplish nothing.

Don’t you love when the doctor walks in and asks you why you’re there when he should already know?

For about a year, I have been waking up in the wee hours with extreme hip pain. The only relief is rising and moving around. Because I’m not getting enough sleep, I doze off at my desk, on the couch, in the hot tub, on the deck, almost anywhere.

I have had x-rays, physical therapy, and cortisone shots. I bought a new mattress, and then I bought a pad for the top of the new mattress. My bed feels amazing, but it didn’t help.

Many nights, I wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. and limp to the couch to sleep half sitting up because it’s the only position that doesn’t hurt. Most mornings, I stagger around with a cane for a while before the pain eases.

Here's the thing. Once I get going, I can do all my usual stuff. I can walk, climb, bend, squat, lift, and do yoga—except for the lotus position.

So why does it hurt in bed? The last time we met, this young PA thought I had bursitis. He was wrong.

After being denied once, my insurance company finally approved an MRI. I’m claustrophobic, but I was willing to be encased in a noisy tube to find out what’s what. A little valium, and it wasn’t as bad as I expected.

The results appeared last week on My Chart, our hospital’s online communication system. On first read, I laughed. Gobbledygook. So much medical terminology it didn’t make any sense. I reread it slowly, looking up a few words. Okay. I have a labral tear, a rip in the connective cartilage right where my hip bends at the groin.

According to Dr. Google, that can be easily fixed with outpatient surgery. Whew. No big tumor, no hip replacement, no gosh-we-don’t-know. A friend volunteered to drive me and care for me after the procedure. All good. It would barely disrupt my life.

But I needed a professional to interpret the results and forward me to the next step.

Our local orthopedic surgeon retired, so I got the PA, the young guy who gave me a shot a couple months ago.

He acted like he’d never seen me before and like he was ready to bolt out the door any second. He asked: Why are you here? Have you tried shots? Are you interested in physical therapy?

I did all that. It’s on my chart, which he clearly didn’t look at.

He did a cursory exam. Nothing hurt much because he barely touched me.

Finally, I demanded, “Can we talk about the MRI?”

He put it up on the computer screen. The only thing I recognized was my flabby buttocks. And then he said the thing that sent my mood deep into the swamp. There was a labral tear, yes, but also a goodly amount of osteoarthritis. They don’t usually repair those tears in older people, he said, especially if you have osteoarthritis. They’ll probably recommend a hip replacement.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Hospital, surgery, rehab, laid up for months, nobody to help me. But I need to play music at church, and how can I get a dog if I can’t walk, and . . .

I took the stairs to the office. It didn’t hurt. I don’t need a new hip. Do I? Up to now, I have been lucky. I have had no major surgeries. My only surgical scar is on my little toe. I knew my time would come, but a new hip?

Are all these hip replacements my friends are getting just a money-making scam? If it isn’t broken, do we have to replace it?

Back in my car, I thought: What do I do now? I wanted to hike to a spot overlooking the ocean and sit for as long as it took to find my balance again. But it was raining, so I went home and ate a veggie burger with avocado and tomato for lunch.

Later, sitting in a few minutes of sunshine between rain showers, I looked around my yard at all the rusty tools and rusty furniture. Maybe my arthritic joints are like rusty pieces of metal. If you tried to nail them together, they would never hold because of all the rust.

But crap. Now I wait for an appointment with a sports medicine doc an hour away in Corvallis, maybe another MRI “with contrast,” maybe surgery . . .

Maybe he’ll say it’s no big deal, a few stitches to fix the tear and you’re done. Or not.

I felt sorry for myself the rest of the day and didn’t do any of the things on my list. Well, I did write a bad poem about my experience, but otherwise it was video games and another episode of “Hacks” on TV. (Good show!) I did make a run to the grocery store, wandering the aisles, thinking, "I’m all alone. I have no reason to go home.”

After gorging on spaghetti for dinner, I remembered something else about my visit to the doctor. As I climbed the stairs, I heard the most beautiful music. In the lobby, a man sat playing a Native American flute. It was such a comforting sound. Not wanting to interrupt, I mouthed “thank you” and hurried on because I was running late.

They don’t usually have music at the clinic here, but maybe they should. Not the recorded schlock they play at the grocery store, but simple offerings by real musicians. The Kaiser-Permanente hospital where my dad used to go had a grand piano in the lobby, and hired professionals to play it. Music is a gift, especially when you’re scared spitless about your own health or that of a loved one.

I don’t own a Native American flute, but I want one. I looked them up online. The good ones are expensive. Like harmonicas, they come in different keys, so I’d want to own a bunch of them. BUT I can make the same sounds with my alto recorder. I’m not good at it, thanks to practicing only once or twice a year, but last night, while listening to Native American flute videos, I got it out and discovered I could match the sounds—between squeaks. There’s something about that rich, deep music that has curative powers.

It won’t fix my hip, but it does help my heart.

Rather than subject you to my bad playing, I offer this recording of a real flute player.

Can we do this alone? We’ll see.

I mean yes, we can.

Let’s talk: Dear friends, have any of you had hip surgery? How long did it take to recover? How much help did you need? Could you eventually do everything you used to do?

Have you gone to the doctor hoping for a resolution to a problem and gotten nothing but frustration? Feel free to vent.

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I’m reading the most amazing memoir by my sister She Writes Press author Penny Lane. What a story. Imagine you’re four years old, living a happy life with people you think are your parents. Then this man shows up who says he’s your father. Suddenly you’re going to live with him and his wife, who immediately hates you. Neither of them speak much English. I am so hooked on this book. It’s called Redeemed. Highly recommended.

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How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available now at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.