Shades of Gray Exist in Medicine

One thing I have learned for sure as a patient, is that there are shades of gray in medicine--at least in my experience.  Let's face it, we have all been to the doctor where things must be black or white by our physician. Often times, we can't put their egos aside to challenge their absolutism because they are in the way of their purported diagnosis.  Since the beginning of my trials with my ankles, feet, and legs, I have been thrown into a world of medicine where contradictions and inexplicable observations have been commonplace with each office visit:A practice of medicine on me and, I'm sure, on millions of other patients.  Because dichotomous choices are the rule and not the exception, we must live or not with what our lab results produce: normal or abnormal, benign or malignant, and clinical judgements that scare us to death or grant us life.

Medical jargon has its place but not when used to confuse a patient.  After my follow-ups with some specialists, I have been left with degrees of uncertainty (of course, my physician would never admit to this outcome), indecision, and well things even look "fuzzy."  As if all physician knowledge and competence had been swallowed up by the reliance of technology, and empathic care forgotten when the doctor walked into the office visit, the ambivalence about my exact condition was welcomed news--the alternative would have meant a shortened life.

It's okay to have fuzziness even blurriness.  For me, it's given me the opportunity to explore another alternative: re-constructive foot and ankle surgery. And through the many conversations I've had along the way with other physicians, I have also learned that doctors are in many ways like biographers with their patients lives: they keep collecting information about them.  However, while some have wanted to do just that and only that--a wait and see attitude was not an option for me at the expense of further deterioration and weakness.

For some, shades of gray are not acceptable, for me it was.  I haven't strolled with my dogs in a couple of years now--things have been very blurry for them.  They don't understand why our trek through the woods one day stopped, or why I could no longer roll around in the cool grass with them.  Maybe, they see now the optimism in my eyes that the shades of gray have produced: light. Perhaps, that walk together again is nearer for us all.