Paging Dr. IPad

In the previous post, I wondered what John Cage would have made of the available digital media we now have at our disposal. I had occasion to make use of its capabilities the other day. For some reason, my shoe stuck to the carpet and I fell, hitting the ground with my right knee and also banging my head on the floor. Since I had on reading glasses at the time, I ended up with a black eye and a very sore knee. Cosmetically, the eye was unpleasant, but not painful. The knee, however, did hurt quite a bit. I missed the opera at the theater “A Masked Ball”, deciding to rest with an ice pack, while I listened to it on the radio.

When it still hurt the next day, I decided to try an experiment with the IPad. I  Facetimed my brother Michael, a retired orthopedic surgeon. He thought it looked terrible. Well, I have never had great legs or knees, but it was the bruising that bothered him. There was also a small rug burn abrasion. Anyway, under his professional guidance, I poked here and there reporting on the results. He advised an X-ray and staying off it as much as possible. He wanted to make sure that the tibia was not fractured, which would mean staying off the leg for 5 to 6 weeks.

The next day I called my doctor (an internist) and asked for an X-ray order at the imaging center next to his office. I also asked Michael to email specific instructions to the tech, which I printed and took with me to the lab. Good thing I did, for the doctor, not being a bone person, had just written an order to X-ray the right knee. Fortunately the tech took my brother’s instructions and did what needed to be done.

I don’t’ have the results yet, but I have babied the injured joint and it feels much better. My doctor never calls me with the test results, so I have to call him and see what the radiologist found.

Anyway, I thank my IPad and my brother for their excellent service in this matter and think it was just a dandy way to deal with this, rather than spend hours in the ER.