The first set-back

Since getting out of the hospital on May 12  - 22 days and four surgeries after the accident - we got our first bit of disturbing news Monday.
We went in for the orthopedic clinic at UAB and MG got a complete X-ray. I stood behind the control panel with the X-ray technician, and watched the images as they came up on the screen. I'd forgotten just how much hardware went into putting MG back together ... the fact that three-quarters of her pelvis seems to be held together by one long plate; the two screws in the back; the one seven-inch long screw; thetwo smaller screws on the left side; the fragments of bone that weren't big enough to be reattached but were determined not likely to be a problem.
They also did an X-ray of MG's left knee, because she hasn't been able to bend it fully. Our wonderful physical therapist said she believed it was a torn meniscus. The orthopedic surgeon said he might concur, but MG was set to go get an MRI today (Tuesday) to be sure. We won't know until we get results back, and if there is a tear then the doctors have to determine how that might  affect rehab - whether it means being 'scoped, or treated with more therapy.
That was the first setback. Otherwise, MG is able to start putting a "little" weight on her left leg, which means soon we'll be able to begin out-patient rehab, a truly substantial step toward discovering what our new "normal" will be.
There was more.

First, a few more observations about our medical system.
It's wonderful, for the most part. I do believe my family is fortunate to have a facility like UAB, with many of the best doctors and world-class facilities. I can't help but wonder if MG would have survived if she'd had to be flown to UAB, which is just one of a handful of Level One Trauma units in the South; or if the ambulance ride had taken an hour or more. Now, from two months past the accident, it is easy to forget just how "life and death" MG's short trip to the UAB emergency room really was.
But this experience has highlighted what I believe is a problem in health care, one I'm not sure how to fix.
At the beginning, the doctor in charge of MG's condition was Dr. Melton, the trauma surgeon.
To this day, I've never met or spoken with Dr. Melton, although MG said she remembers Dr. Melton seeing her in the hospital and did see her when MG went back to the trauma clinic a few weeks later. I'm not saying I should have met or spoken with Dr. Melton, because I had access to Dr. Cox, who - as far as I know - performed the actual surgeries on MG (at least the second and third), and was very gracious with his time and knowledge.
Once trauma released MG, she was turned over to the orthopedic doctors, and I've already chronicled my frustration with that group - until I met Dr. Lowe, who as far as I'm concerned remains the Olivier of Orthopedic Surgeons, the Botticelli of Bones, the ... oh well, you get the idea.
Something Dr. Lowe told me immediately after surgery stuck with me, in that he compared what he does to being a mechanic or carpenter. His job is simply to put things back in place and make sure they hold, which from all appearances, in the case of MG, he has done.
I say that only to point out what I know from talking and reading about other medical cases is a problem: there is no one, single doctor who supervises patient care from entry to exit. Every doctor has a speciality, and while they are aware of each other's roles, there doesn't appear to be anyone who is there to make sure everything is coordinated, who can tie up all the various aspects of what - in this instance - MG's care, and be there to answer or find the answer to our concerns and questions.
Recently I read the biography of Steve Jobs, the founder and driving genius of Apple. When Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, he had the money to hire a doctor in Memphis and put this doctor in charge of all aspects of Jobs' care. It made sense.
Unfortunately, very few of us have Jobs' money. Therefore, we go from doctor to doctor and have to try to piece everything together as best we can, while realizing that very few of us have any qualifications or are the slightest bit prepared to do that.
Maybe this goes back to the old days of the "family doctor,'' who would be that point of contact between patient and medical profession.
I say this because the trauma team was quick - and rightfully so- to take credit for saving MG's life. And the orthopedic doctors were quick - and, again, rightfully so - to take credit for putting MG's bones back together.
But as least in the case of a world class teaching facility like UAB, it's also apparent that once one set of doctors feels they have done their job, they are done with you.
And often, that's not the end of what a patient needs.

The biggest setback for us Monday came in our visit with Dr. Lowe. MG came home with a left leg that, as she said, felt like it was an alien being attached to her body. There was very little feeling, very little control.
Slowly, that has changed. She has regained a lot of feeling (too much feeling, at times!), and more control. Every day, more and more of the nerves and muscles start to come back into form.
However, there are still a few areas where MG does not have feeling or muscle control. And Dr. Lowe told us Monday that if she hasn't seen any improvement up to now, the odds were only 30 percent that she ever would.
This was particularly disheartening for MG and I. We had focused all along on near-complete recovery. Everything had gone so well. We knew it would take time, but there was never any doubt that in time, recovery would be complete - or at least more complete than a 70-percent chance of permanent damage to parts of her left leg/foot would indicate.
Now, admittedly, in the bigger scheme of things this is not huge. And one of the first things I told MG was that she had far less than a 30 percent chance of surviving the wreck to begin with, so a 30 percent chance now is huge.
Still, it was a reminder of the reality that, as SB said way back in the early days of this ordeal, "Every step forward is going to be full of hard."
And it has been. But suddenly faced with the chance of hitting a stone wall in the recovery process was harder than we'd anticipated.
Not that we won't accept whatever happens. Not that we don't believe God can't change her circumstances in His good pleasure. We are not people without hope; we are sometimes perplexed, but not in despair.
Apparently, this isn't something the trauma surgeon can help us with. It's not something the orthopedic surgeon can help us understand. I'm not sure who that doctor is, or if that doctor exists.
It's not just this; there are so many examples of a breakdown in communication. The first time the physical therapist came to the house, she hadn't been provided a full extent of MG's injuries and so wasn't aware of the extent. Fortunately, we had my sister-in-law, also a phyiscal therapist, who was there for that first visit and was able to communicate how the injuries were inter-related and help the physical therapist get a better idea of the best way to proceed (which she has, and we'll be eternally grateful).
And someone tell me why you go to the clinic and you fill out a form that asks you to list all your medications. Then you go to the exam room and the nurse asks you to tell her all your medications. Then the student-doctor comes in (I know they are called "residents,'' but they are still student-doctors) and asks you about your injuries and your medications.
I wonder what would happen if we simply gave every one a wildly different list. Would anyone ever notice? If every time we go in we have to do this, what's the point?
Medical care just seems, at times, wildly disconnected. As patients, we need to not be afraid to ask questions and get opinions and take charge; yet as patients we have grown accustomed to accepting whatever the doctors say as the way it's supposed to be, that we're just not smart enough to question doctors.

This won't come out exactly right, so forgive me. But I remember our daughter Catherine, who was born severely handicapped but who blessed our lives for so long.
Catherine had a myriad of health problems that were obvious and significant, but not necessary to go into now. However, both MG and I remember well-meaning people - complete strangers - who would stop us in the mall, or parking lots, or where ever to ask if they could pray for Catherine, or in some cases to deliver us a "message" they believed God had given them to give to us. Always, they'd pray that Catherine was 'healed' and 'made whole.'
While we appreciated the sincerity and always welcomed prayer, it was also sometimes a bit offensive. We believed that Catherine was perfect in God's eyes, and we had seen how God has used her in so many people's lives - including our own.
So I wonder if even as we pray for MG to be made "whole," as she was before the accident, I think about people who deal with this kind of impairment and wonder how they'd feel about my concern that MG wind up spending the rest of her life "like them."
Selfishly, I want - no, I honestly believe - MG will be made whole. I can't imagine that she wouldn't be.
At the same time, like Paul who prayed three times for his affliction to be removed and was denied three times, if God has a greater purpose to be served by her carrying this infirmity with her, we'll learn to not only accept but, hopefully, rejoice in what we face.
(And I know that's really easy for me to say, since I'm not the one personally afflicted).

I did get a call from the Mountain Brook Police, more of my heroes in this whole thing. They continue to work toward resolution of the court case against the man that hit MG.
And I have to admit, for as long as I believed that MG would eventually be completely restored to health, I wasn't mad. But now, knowing there are so many scars and perhaps impairments she will have to learn to live with for the rest of her life, I find myself angry. I want this guy to know what his stupid, dangerous decision did to my family.
But that's selfish of me.

Like I said, we got a set-back this week.
"Teach me to believe that all degrees of mercy arise from several degrees of prayer, that when faith is begun it is imperfect and must grow, as chapped ground opens wider and wider until rain comes. So shall I wait thy will, pray for it to be done, and by thy grace become fully obedient."