How do you deal with constant medical disappointments?
I live in Canada. I’ve had excruciating tennis elbow for four years. Please trust me when I say I’ve tried everything including surgery. As a consequence, I get overuse injuries on my left side. 2 months ago, I felt that grating, rubbing feeling when I extend my wrist upward. Despite icing The pain continues. My previous orthopaedic surgeon had referred me to a physiatrist. I asked my family doctor to refer me to the physiatrist that was already treating my elbow.
There were issues with the referral from the start. I called and checked In frequently with the two offices. First, my family doctor’s office sent the referral to the wrong number. Then there was a referral form that the office hadn’t completed. When I went to my appointment today, the physiatrist never received my imaging reports. I checked, but I expected my family doctor to send that information.
My physiatrist did a very quick ultrasound and said he saw nothing. He suggested the previous Report of wrist tendinitis was incorrect because the Imaging clinic was shady. However, I’ve been using this Clinic for years and it has a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic. I pushed my luck a little bit by asking for a repeat ultrasound in his hospital and got a positive response. I also asked my family Dr to please send the Imaging.
So right now I am hoping to have a revision of my right tennis elbow surgery in the future while I have pain in my left wrist. So I have no good hand. I’m wondering how you deal with constant setbacks and disappointments especially when you have limited control over how the Health system works. When I finally got home, I just burst into tears at my lack of progress. Edited to add I went and hoping for a Cortizone shot in my wrist