On keeping doctors in business

I believe it is my personal goal to keep the local medical profession in business. I spend entirely too much time seeing different medical professionals. Then I got hold of the pathology report from my ankle MRI. I think its written in secret doctor language that requires a doctor to decipher it. To be fair, most pathology reports require some level of decoder ring but this one really takes the whole case.

I will not bore you with the entire thing but here is the finally impression at the bottom:

1. Chronic full-thickness tear of the anterior talofibular ligament.
2. Evidence of avulsive changes of the tip of the lateral malleolus, better characterized on the radiographs.
3. Osteochondral lesion in the posterior lateral aspect the talar dome, with overlying chondromalacia and at least partial-thickness chondral defect. Associated small focal vertically oriented osteochondral fracture.
4. 0.7 x 1.3 x 1.8 cm ganglion or synovial cyst arising from teh posterior aspect the tibiotalar joint and intimately associated with the flexor allucis longus muscle.

My thoughts (because the doctor already told me what's wrong):
1. I have a ligament tear
2. I have a bone chip
3. I have a cartilage chip
4. I have an old cyst

I tried to struggle through the first parts of the description of the report and it was like reading a text book in a foreign language. So I clearly think that its a plot by doctors to keep them in business. If you haven't gone to medical school you can't translate this to real English. What if you could go for a medical test and get a report that told you what was wrong and magically knew how to fix it? Nah, not going to work.

Anyway, this week Walter went to the doctor twice and I only went once, but might have to go back today. (Next week I will hit my weekly average of two appointments.) Walter's procedure went fine yesterday. He seems less whiney (big sign of improved health) and ate his favorite foods without regretting it later. I am off to work today and have made a very healthy salad for lunch with hummus on top to be healthier. And I talked to the vet and the cat has nothing discernible wrong with him but to reverse some of the weight loss issues he is now allowed to have kitty treats again. So his life is now complete.