Unexpected news

Friday 17th September 2010

I had an appointment to see Kermit at 9am to find out if the plastic man had changed his mind and agreed to do the necessary skin graft.

Shortly after I had been ushered into the consulting room, what looked like a registrar picked up my notes from the box outside the consulting room door and went into the consultants office to look over them.

I hate seeing registrars so wasn’t amused when one of them picked up my notes with the intention of seeing me.

Kermit walked into the consultants office and the registrar, who was reading my notes, mention my name and mumbled something which I couldn’t hear.
“Oh, it’s a long story”, replied Kermit, taking my notes from him and left the office alone.

“How are you”, he asked, as he came into the consulting room.
“Fine”, I replied.

He asked how I had got on with the back man so I explained what he had said about surgery and the possibility of ending up paralysed.

Kermit nodded, “any back surgery carries a risk, and sadly because of everything that’s gone on with you, it’s greater. However he’s the expert so I’m sure he’ll go through everything with you”.

He flicked through my notes, “I had a chat with the plastic surgeon", he said, "and we’ve both come to the agreement that it would be best if we left thing well alone”.

“Ok”, I said, slowly.

“One of the hardest things a consultant has to do is decide when to draw the line. I could do the operation, but it may not work. That’s very frustrating for a consultant when things don’t go the way they want”.

“It would be a tough operation, one that takes a lot of skill and might be a challenge too far”, he added.

He closed my notes then said, “you seem to be coping very well the way you are, and have adapted to it. If you had said you weren’t then I might have considered it”.

HOW DARE HE !!!!! How dare he say that because I’ve coped well without having a hip, that he won’t do the operation. What choice did I have. Staying in bed all day and feeling sorry for myself wasn’t an option. I had to cope with it. It was as simple as that.

All along he had been extremely enthusiastic about putting in a new hip. He said he loved doing complex and challenging operations and wasn’t happy when the plastic man was stalling.

Now it appeared that he hadn’t the necessary skills he thought he had. So because of his lack of ability, to try and make him feel better, he said he was pleased with how I was coping with everything.

What I am most annoyed at is his arrogance. Instead of saying ‘I don’t have the skills to do the operation so I’ll refer you to someone who does’, he has simply drawn a line under it, with the attitude of ‘if I can’t do it, then no one can’.

I was going to seek a second opinion if the plastic man had said no. I never thought I’d have to do that with Kermit….