Another medical person promises me the moon, if I can pay for it.

I wrote this last Wednesday at the Physical therapy office. We were there for 3 hours. Glad I don't have a life or anything. Plus I probably infected everyone there with my cold. I hope I didn't kill any old people. They can be fragile, you know. Here is an update on situation Jared.

I have a cold today. Everything seems swollen and throbbing. I am sitting at physical therapy while they are working on Jared. His stomach seems to be doing better and his appetite is returning. He ate a whole pound of bacon and two glasses of orange juice for breakfast. Actually if I would cook it for him, he would eat a pound of bacon for every meal. This will help to fatten him up, but I am not that fond of cooking bacon. Not to mention it does not sound like a very well balanced diet.

Soon another medical person will come and fit Jared for special splint that will work on getting his leg straight. Over the past few weeks he has not been to PT and has kept his knee bent. When we came last week the therapist was very dismayed to find that his knee will not straighten more than 60 degrees. They did have it down to 10 degrees at one point in January.

This brace will cost me $276 a month to rent. Holy bankruptcy batman! But at this point I will and would pay any price to get this child walking without crutches.

My insurance, although great for catastrophic medical situations, not so good when it comes to prosthetic type of things. We must look at the medical insurance cup as being half full. Truth be told I would prefer to pay $275 a month than pay for the $350,000 hospital stay that saved my son's life. I only had to pay $275 for that, and I am truly grateful. And hey this company takes Discover, so more cash back bonus for me.

But I can’t help feeling skeptical. Here is another medical device that is supposed to help my son heal. I paid $110 for a traction device that did nothing. Next, I paid $70 to have my sons shoe built up. He only wore that for a month before surgery. And now he needs new shoes, which we still have not purchased. Finally, the AFO that cost me a mere $475. Yea, he has worn that about 10 times maybe. Now it is no good because if you can’t straighten your leg, you can’t wear it. It will be used again though, so it is not a total waste.

Perhaps this will be the thing that will finally make the difference. It is going to constantly stretch his leg, but will not be painful. It is suppose to do the same thing as if a therapist was stretching his leg for 8 hours a day.

Before this whole experience, I had thought of the medical system as being an exact science. But it has been more about trial and error for us. Something between voodoo and a dart board. Too their credit, they did save his life. He is alive and kicking, if not walking.

So another opportunity for me to practice my patience skills. And a chance to tackle what seems like mission impossible: get a fourteen year old to do something he doesn't want to do. When we first got home, he only wore it for a few minutes, but over the weekend it is getting better, and so perhaps it will not be failure yet. I just read something in the Ensign that said that there is no time table for perfection. I need to stop have unrealistic expectations of the timing of his total recovery, then maybe I won't be disappointed so often.

So time will tell.