Payment continues

This morning I spent about an hour in what should have been a 10 minute consultation with a doctor. Don't jump to conclusions, I do not have swine flu and am not sick. The title of this little blurb should give you an idea of what the consultation was about.

Upon receiving a pessimistic report from Amy's physical therapist about my ankle I decided to have it actually checked out. I brought my entire medical record (which is actually quite extensive now) for my ankle to my appointment this morning and briefly went through it with the doctor. He examined the various x-rays, MRIs and other evaluations before he started playing with my ankle. Well at least the first part of the visit seemed to be going well.

After preforming two little movements of my foot I watched the doctor's and his assistant's faces cringe. They looked at each other before the doctor repeated the same movements with my foot. he told me he didn't want to touch my ankle again until x-rays were taken. The x-rays took a few minutes and I was back in the doctor's office. During my absense he had gone over the MRIs again and was prepared for a lecture.

He started off by commending the Brazilian doctor for a good job with the type of surgery I received while on my mission. Then he began to explain that given the type of surgery I had in Brazil and the amount of movement in my ankle there was no way that I still had any ligaments attached to the anterior and lateral portions of my ankle! -my heart felt like it had dropped off a cliff at this point- Apparently I have been walking, running, and playing on an ankle with basically NO ligaments attaching it to the rest of my foot! Both the anterior talorfibular and the calcaneofibular ligaments are completely gone. Thus leaving only the posterior talorfibular liagment. Talk about some reinforced pride; who needs all those ligaments to play soccer, hike the Alps and win Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. Unfortunately even before my surgery in Brazil I had sustained a fair amount of damage to the cartilage in the ankle joint. Given my activity level and the fact that for the last year and a half I have been missing the normal structural support of the ligaments that were supposed to be there the probability of more injury is quite high.

The other downfall to all of this is that because I had a primary reattachment surgery (where they place metal pins in the bone and sew the ligaments back together) in Brazil I cannot have another MRI to see what my ankle looks like today. But I can have a CT Scan which the doctor said will provide some evidence of what has happened in my ankle. (Don't worry I'm not being stubborn...yet. I already have an appointment, tomorrow, for the CT Scan)

The best part about this entire thing is that on my way home all I could think about was the blessing I had received prior to my surgery in Brazil. Together a member of the area presidency and my mission president gave me a blessing which simply said, "Elder Braudt, there are somethings in the world that we must pass through. Learn well the first time so that you do not have to go through them again." Needless to say it appears that my inability to learn in the Lord's way has presented me with an opportunity to learn what I should have the first time around.

May we all learn from my experiences and simply embrace the trials of this world for what they are and learn from an omniscient and loving Father. God Bless.