This week I had another one of those run-ins with middle age – those not necessarily painful, but subtle reminders that all your moving parts were fully formed two decades ago and that when humans got to the evolutionary stage where those parts pretty much settled into their current form, two decades was about all you had to use them. Today, of course, people in their 20s consider middle age problems for about as long as it takes to order another round of tequila shooters.
On Monday, I was told by my orthopedic doctor guy simply this, “if you keep running and abusing that knee of yours, you’ll be back here within 10 years getting prepped for a new knee.”
At least he made it relatively easy to understand.
When I considered it, I had to take into account the advantages a ‘new’ knee could possibly imply. Well, first, it’d be new wouldn’t it? That has to count for something. So, as I’m such an optimist, I assumed the following: If I had the surgery in the future, the following potential bad things (according to the Mayo Clinic) that can happen in a knee replacement surgery … would not: Infection, stiffness, blood clots in the vein or lungs, heart attack, stroke, or nerve damage. And of course, left unsaid, death.
With those happy assumptions in place, I had to take into account that in 10 years a new knee would still likely mean that I couldn’t run. And that’s what this is all about.
I really enjoy running. Earlier this year I was up to 6 and even 7 miles at stretch and things were starting to get better, faster and in a Steve Austin kind of way, stronger. My little endorphin factory was gearing up for production again and it felt good to be out and about looking around at street level.
To be told you can’t (or more aptly, shouldn’t) do something anymore makes you want to do nothing more than go out and do it. So, short term, this really kind of sucks.
Long term, however, I have to admit, it’s better than getting a new knee. I think the words ‘new knee’ could be easily modified into ‘1972 Fiat Spider Convertible’. I had one of those once and it looked fine and seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was easily a bright blue piece of crap. A new knee could be just like that without the benefit of being able to sell it for $20 and a case of beer.
So, the doctor gave me the ‘don’t run’ lecture and told me to get a bike, swim, walk etc., and he offered to give me a shot in the knee with something that would help protect what cartilage remained. He also said I’d probably have to/want to get another injection every 6-8 months, in his words, ‘like an oil change’. Great. Now I’m the Fiat Spider, but in a ’68 model.
I feel it necessary here to turn the topic of this post completely on its head and discuss for a moment socialized medicine. I know it’s a political topic and I don’t usually discuss politics, but I have to say I’m a fan of socialized medicine. My son was born in England where it cost me less than $20 in an English hospital and that was only so the Shadow could have a private room. I filled out next to no paperwork and a visiting nurse came by the house fairly regularly to make sure the new mum was doing well.
I mention this because as the doctor was injecting this stuff into my knee which immediately took on the shape and with the accompanying discomfort of a having a golf ball embedded under my skin, he said the following to me.
“This costs about a thousand dollars…”
Wha…?! For 6ml?! I can’t image crack costs that much. I’ve read that printer ink costs about $8,000 a gallon – making it one of the world’s more expensive liquids. Well, what was put in my knee isn’t, strictly speaking, a liquid, but I easily found two sites on the internet where I could get a 6ml syringe of the stuff for just a smidge under $400. Still, with more than 3,785 milliliters in a U.S. gallon, that means the stuff they injected into my knee (and will do twice a year for probably many years) costs about as much as a house – a little over $250,000 per gallon. Kind of makes me feel better about buying gasoline. (If you’re interested, scorpion venom comes in at the ludicrous amount of nearly $39 Million/gallon)
But that’s the problem with our healthcare system isn’t it? I can’t help but think that if we took all the money we spent on Medicare and Medicaid, ($793 Billion in FY10 – the largest piece of our spending pie); various and sundry clinic programs, and all the other medical related programs for various constituencies in this country, and brought some order to the pharmaceutical gang-rape of our health care system, we’d probably find that we could fund a world-class national health care system where people who struck themselves with a hammer wouldn’t wait hours before proceeding to the emergency room. (Where they would find that, yes, they had in fact broken their thumb … hypothetically, of course). Also consider that the second largest piece of our federal pie, social security (barely edging out defense) could probably get a little smaller too, because with national healthcare, people wouldn’t need as much money in their later years as their largest bills (medical) wouldn’t exist.
Now, I’m lucky because being in the service, I have socialized medicine. As do your elected Congressional representatives, by the way. (Personally, if I were you, I’d be pretty pissed that they think socialized medicine is ok for them, but not for you.)
So, what have we learned today? We’ve learned that golf-ball sized globules of synthetic stuff hurt when injected into a human subject; we’ve learned it probably doesn’t – or shouldn’t – cost more than 400 bucks a pop; we’ve learned that I’m going to have to buy a bicycle and learn to swim without those inflatable things on my arms; and we’ve learned that we should find a way to create a real national health care system – not whatever it is they’re half-heartedly trying now.
Maybe if we did that, when my kids are in their 20s, they’ll have enough money for a round of drinks as they consider the qualities of Jaegermeister as a cough suppressant.
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