The Mission Goes Awry

May 2011.


My podiatrist's office.






I stared at the X-ray on the wall, a side view of my left foot, the bones linking from toe to heel like the Tappan Zee Bridge.




The exam room door opened, and my young, vibrant doctor swept in, her brow furrowed, her pretty mouth pursed.




"Well."




That's it? That's all she had to say to me? "Well?" "Well?" I stared, waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.




"I didn't need five seconds looking at your X-rays to know what's going on," she said in response to my silence. "You have a high arch. Most people's arches raise 10 to 15 degrees off of the ground. Yours is at a 45-degree angle."




"OK." I still didn't understand why she looked like she was about to deliver a death knell.




"You can't walk anymore."




"Yes I can. See?" I jumped off the examination table and started walking around the room.




"No, no, I mean, you walk for exercise, right? You can't do that anymore."




"Why not?"




"The bones in your feet will break. They can't take the pressure. Plus, you have some other things going on. Achilles Tendinitis in the right foot. Plantar Fasciitis in the left. And Peripheral Neuropathy in both."




She went on to explain the layman's terms behind the Latin, and then she dropped her bomb.




"So to regain strength in your legs and avert surgery on your feet and keep you walking, you have to go to physical therapy."




"Physical therapy? For how long?"




"I don't know. It's indefinite. But if you don't go, if we don't treat this, the bones in your feet will break."




She scribbled a "prescription" order to a physical therapist, gave me some directions to his place and told me to come back in about three weeks. "By then, we'll know what we're dealing with," she said, sending me out of the door with a wave and a smile, as if she was wishing me a relaxing vacation in the Bahamas.




I'd been maintaining my expensive health care plan under Kentucky Access. It was doable, because in December, I'd successfully landed my child in the Kentucky Children's Health Insurance Program. But this news threw an enormous wrench into my Mission. I didn't have time for physical therapy. I was struggling to keep up with my writing assignments. Having to throw physical therapy in the mix would mean I'd have to turn down stories -- and money. There was no telling what the fallout would be from this.




Unfortunately, I was about to enter a season of austere frugality.




Tune in for the next part of the story of Mission Impossible: Health Insurance.