Ruling things out

Image by carljohnson via Flickr

I don’t think I’ve had medical treatment in the past couple of years that wasn’t primarily designed not to treat the problem, which has usually already passed of its own accord, but in order to rule things out. It’s a good thing to do, it’s the way to keep from being caught by surprise, and I have definitely known some people who were caught by surprise, but five hours in the ER, a nice little dose of radiation and ripping off the IV tape seems a high price to pay to learn, once again, there’s nothing wrong with me. But ruling things out comes with the over-50 territory, doesn’t it? So I rule things out. But at this point it would be nice to find out something is actually wrong and be able to fix it. I was actually excited a few months back when it looked like my nagging knee problem was a torn meniscus, something that could be surgically corrected. I don’t want surgery, haven’t ever had anything major, and there are definite risks, but I actually got excited that there could be a quick fix. I had to draw the honest surgeon who looked at it and said there was nothing for him to do. And so it goes.