Geezers in the doctor office

I had to go to my orthopaedic surgeon's office today to have a recent knee injury looked at to determine what I did and what course of treatment to take (it turns out that I have a slight tear of the "gastroc-soleus" muscle in my left knee and calf). One thing I consistently notice every time I see this doctor is the number of geezers in the waiting room, probably to see the doctor about knee or hip replacements or arthritis treatment or some other malady of aging. I suspect that he sees more elderly folk than people closer to my age, given what I tend to see each and every time I walk through the door. One thing I cannot understand is why these geezers insist on making a doctor office visit a family affair. A mini-van will pull up in the parking lot and out will come grandma, grandpa, usually mom with kids in tow, all for the sake of either grandma or grandpa seeing the doctor. Why these folk insist on bringing their entire extended family just for a doctor office visit mystifies me. The waiting room in this particular doctor office isn't terribly big for a practice that consists of only three orthopaedic surgeons, not all of whom are in the office each and every day. And today, I saw more extended families all piling into the waiting room just for one person's appointment, crowding an already crowded room. Perhaps it's because it is so close to Christmas and families are all visiting each other for the holidays, but I see this trend no matter what the season. And even if it's just because folk are visiting for the holidays, why drag the entire clan to the doctor office together, leaving bored and whiny kids who want nothing more than to play with their PlayStations instead of sitting in front of a TV that has nothing but health news on it. (Nearly every doctor office I visit has CNN's round-the-clock health channel playing on their waiting room television, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta talking about various health issues and if you pay too close attention, you can rapidly become far too paranoid for your own good!) Well, I guess it's just the desire to make every single thing a "family affair", including dragging granny or gramps to the doctor. Wheeeee! What fun for the kiddies to sit among the geezers who sit and complain about their aches and pains! What a preview of what they're in for when they grow old!

BACK TO PT.......AGAIN..........

The result of my visiting my orthopaedic surgeon is yet another return trip to physical therapy downtown at the office where I have done PT so many times in the past. Whenever I am released from PT, I always joke, "Oh, I'm not going away, I'll be back....probably sooner rather than later, so....see ya later!" I seem to be quite the repeat customer there to where they've come to know me far too well in recent years. The problem is that Jason (pictured above with the blue ball), who has been my therapist for over two years, is leaving the profession to become a high school science teacher and begins his student teaching right after the holidays, so I doubt that he is still working there. In fact, I would not be surprised if he has already tendered his resignation. The odd thing was that when I went downtown today to schedule an intake evaluation there, I didn't recognize a soul there. Either everyone I've known there for two years has left, or they are all on vacation this week due to Christmas and will be back after the holidays. I'm just very much going to miss Jason working on me, although I do see him twice a week as my fitness trainer at the gym he and some others opened last winter. So it isn't like I don't get to work with him at all anymore, just not as my physical therapist, and I've developed a strong level of trust for him. I just hope that Jay, the other PT who has worked on me in the past, hasn't left. While Jay doesn't know me as well as Jason, still, I've worked with him enough to where I feel comfortable with him. It just seems that whenever I get a really good PT, they quit or move. I can't say that I fully understand why, but maybe there is a high level of burnout in that profession. After all, much like any other health care profession these days, you probably mostly see geezers instead of fairly young people. It seems that in recent years, I've been one of the younger people they see at PT, except for the occasional athlete recovering from a sports injury. So it will be interesting to see what the deal is when I start PT again tomorrow. I'm going to see how much I can do by myself at home to save some money. I'll ask them to give me an "at home" regimen to cut down on the number of PT visits I have to make, owing to my tight budget. I have all of the equipment that I need here at home - various levels of resistance bands and weights, most of which are the same thing we use downtown at the PT office. I'm going to try to make this as short a rehab stint as possible so that I can save money and get back to normal as quickly as possible. The more I can do at home, the better.