How Far We Have Come?

Since the sun crossed the earth’s equinox at 5:01am EDT yesterday morning, I wish a very Happy Spring to my dear Northern Hemisphere readers, and a most Happy Autumn to my dear Southern Hemisphere readers! (No, my nerdiness is not restricted to Regency trivia.)

At the time this blog posts, it will have been 13 months and 6 days since my Daffy Duck-like fall down the stairs, and after the last few doctor appointments I have had, I find myself contrasting medical care during the Regency versus today.

I shall never claim modern medicine is not a significant improvement from the days when physicians, caring more for maintaining their social status as ‘gentlemen’, would not touch their patients and made diagnoses merely after gazing upon them. And these learned men still used Aristotle, with his inaccurate scientific understanding, and Galen, with his four humours theory, as Medical Gospel.

Antibiotics and immunizations are likely the single greatest contributors in reducing childhood mortality rates, greatly extending overall life expectancy. There is not a Christmastide where I do not include my gratitude, on our annual Thankful Chain, for the doctors who saved mine and my 8^th dear child’s life during her birth, or the neurologists and pharmaceuticals that have persevered the life of my beloved epileptic child. Doctors have, likewise, saved the lives of my eldest and second sons, both of whom have auto-immune disorders.

However, I begin to question if modern orthopaedists are ANY improvement over the doctors of two-hundred years ago.

Forgive me, dear readers, but the Frustration is running strong with this writer. After a string of appointments over the last 4 weeks, I don’t know whether to bang my head into a wall, cry, or smother my troubles in a vat of ice-cream.

A recent test revealed yet another area damaged during my fall – but Somehow, all but one of the six specialists I see (whether a new one or a repeat), still seem to think it is but 3-5 months since my fall. And this is making it very difficult to co-ordinate long term management, when all the orthopaedists are saying, “Give it a few months; it needs time to heal.” (Oh, really! I don’t think anything much will improve in giving it another 13 months, doc! Do you even read my chart?! [Of course, as a properly raised American Southern girl of a certain age, I would nevah dream of saying it – but it doesn’t stop me from Thinking it!])

It seems, at times, as though I am being punished for managing my own health. “Why would we consider surgery, when you’ve obviously been taking excellent care of your foot?” (You consider it reasonable that I’ve had three catastrophic falls in 2.5 years, all three breaking bones and the last leaving me unable to drive, in constant pain, and incapable of meaningful exercise, because this ankle, crushed 15 years ago, has no feeling, doesn’t move, and gives out on a regular basis?)

I have mentioned before that the “recovery” recommendations after my fall would have been the same whether 225 years ago or last year, except for the ready availability of laudanum versus our modern understanding of the dangers of opioids. The biggest difference would have been after the initial injury to the ankle 15 years ago: there would have been no question of saving the foot – but considering this would have been without anaesthesia, I can count at least ONE benefit of a modern orthopaedics. An amputation in the early 19th-century would have rendered me either wheelchair bound (a type of invalidism that was more accepted then than today) or with a peg leg.

The irony that either option would have likely prevented my fall (and its aftermath) is not lost upon me.

I hope y’all have a wonderful weekend, dear readers. Please don’t let my funky mood bother you, for I am off to grab my vat of ice cream… and a spoon.