Cranky
had a significant K Street experience recently. Every Washington wonk dreams of
becoming a K Street somebody, and after almost forty years in the town, Cranky
finally made it.
Did
Cranky succeed in convincing a Congressional staffer to change the position of
a comma in an appropriations bill, thereby qualifying Cranky’s client for
several millions in tax breaks?
Noooo.
Did
Cranky find a way for a client to avoid complex and expensive EPA regulations?
Noooo.
Did
a maitre’d say to Cranky: “Haven’t seen you in a few days, Sir. Your usual
table?”
Noooo.
Well,
what was it?
After
finishing a day’s work at a legal sweatshop document review project, Cranky was
crossing K Street at its intersection with 18th Street when his knee went belly
up. Cranky was almost instantly crumpled on the street in intense pain and
screaming emphatically about it.
Fortunately,
several of the hundreds of home-bound passersby paused in their journeys long
enough to drag Cranky to the sidewalk and stand him against a small barrier
protecting one of K Street’s lovely trees. The pain had subsided a tad and
Cranky was able to examine his knee. (He just had running shorts on although he
had not yet commenced his evening run.) Something was majorly obviously wrong.
The kneecap was not in its accustomed place, having relocated down and to the
left, and was sort of free-floating. The foremost thing in Cranky’s mind was,
“I gotta get outta town.”
Now
residents of the north side of the Potomac River in the DC area may not
understand this, but many citizens of Northern Virginia prefer to keep certain
functions on the south side and close to home, medical care being one of them.
And there is some concern about trusting one's well-being to a large urban medical
institution. The medical care may be among the finest, but it can come with
some less-than-pleasant secondary accouterments. For example, about ten years
ago, Cranky had a heart valve repair operation at a major urban institution.
The medical procedure went as expected, but Cranky will never forget the week
he spent afterwards, recuperating from major heart surgery, with a loud-snoring,
quaintly odorous roommate who took frequent cigarette walks, returning reeking
like a Camel commercial.
Anyway,
think of him what you will, but Cranky did not desire to repeat the experience.
So he tested his knee, found that he could gingerly make some progress, called
his spouse to describe what had happened and his plan, and set out for a metro
stop. The idea was to take the metro to a Northern Virginia station, and thus
perhaps to a less stressful medical situation. Cranky did get part way to the
Farragut West metro stop but then the knee gave way again, and he was once more
on the ground, disrupting the commutes of many hundreds with his incessant
screaming.
A
few Good Samaritans were among the flowing crowds, however, and 911 was shortly
called. An ambulance soon arrived. Cranky thanked his temporary guardians and
was off to a large urban medical institution.
The
rest of the story is as might be expected, only maybe a little worse. Cranky
will try to keep it brief, mentioning the most salient points. The injury
itself was a complete rupture or tear of the quadriceps tendon that attaches
the quadriceps muscle to the kneecap, or patella. Or at least that’s the
terminology as Cranky now understands it. Pain-wise, this is a baddy, but in
terms of correction it seems to be a rather basic orthopedic surgical procedure
involving the reattachment of the tendon to the kneecap. Indeed, it allegedly
is sometimes done on an outpatient basis. The length and requirements of the
rehab process, however, are no picnic.
Cranky
arrived in the emergency room of Major Urban Trauma Center (exact
identification withheld to protect the innocent) at approximately 5:30 p.m. on
a Thursday afternoon. He was soon joined by Ms. Cranky, who was to be
transported back and forth over the following days by Long-Suffering, Across-The-Street
Neighbor, who seems to get a perverse pleasure from Cranky's adventures. The ER
was Cranky's home for the next seven or so hours as he was evaluated, allegedly
scheduled for surgery, and entertained by the dramas that are part of the
environment of an urban ER. He was finally told that surgery would not occur
that night, partly because the available Orthopedic Surgeon had too many other
cases.
At
this point, Cranky broached the possibility of being transferred to a medical
facility in Northern Virginia. He was to raise this possibility several more
times over the next few days as the surgery timeframe was continually revised.
Each time he was persuaded by the argument that the move, while doable,
required a major administrative and logistical effort, that the preliminary
steps already taken would have to be repeated at the new institution, and that
things were not much more than an hour or so away from beginning. In hindsight,
…oh well.
Surgery
did not occur the next morning although its start was allegedly not far off.
The other thing that did not occur was pain medication. Whether through
oversight, ineptness, conflict with the supposedly imminent surgery, Cranky
went without pain medication for a three-hour period, and felt every second of
the time.
Finally
late Friday afternoon, the surgery time arrived, 24 hours after Cranky’s
admission to Major Urban Trauma Center. But Cranky spoiled things by, with the
commencement of the anesthesia, permitting his blood pressure to fall to
dangerously low levels. The implication in the explanation given to Cranky
after he had been resuscitated was that if only he hadn’t been such a wimp,
everybody else would not have been inconvenienced, and the efficient workflow
of Major Urban Trauma Center would not have been interrupted. Cranky’s counter
that perhaps the underlying cause was the 24 hours he had spent on practically
no food or liquids fell on deaf ears.
Incidentally,
Cranky's whereabouts became a little uncertain at this stage, and Ms. Cranky spent
almost 30 frantic minutes trying to determine if he had been thrown out with
the trash.
So
Cranky was back to waiting. The surgery was to occur the following morning,
Saturday. Then it was first thing in the afternoon, then later in the afternoon.
At about 5 p.m., 48 hours after being admitted, Cranky had a discussion with a
Person of Some Importance about his predicament. This person seemed to be in
charge of the Trauma Center portion of Major Urban Trauma Center. As this
person explained it, Cranky just didn’t understand how a Major Urban Trauma
Center operated. A Major Urban Trauma Center handles the most traumatic cases
first. If you’re next in line, you get bumped if a more traumatic case comes
in.
Eureka!
So Simple! Now Cranky saw the light. He just had to wait until he had
deteriorated enough to not get bumped by some Johnny-Come-Lately! So Cranky got
back to the business at hand, which he now understood was to deteriorate some
more.
Finally,
later Saturday evening, Cranky had his surgery. And apparently things went
well, medically. But it was not until Tuesday evening, three days after the
surgery and five days after the beginning of the adventure, that Cranky was
able to escape the medical Kafkaesque fortress. And this only after been told
all day Tuesday that he was leaving but then running into the roadblock of an
obstinate Intern who somehow, in the great scheme of things at Major Urban Trauma Center,
outranked or at least was on a par with the Resident and the Attending on her medical team. There was a
problem with some blood count. Cranky told the roadblock, “Look, I’m leaving,”
and for once Cranky prevailed.
It will be awhile before Cranky goes north of the Potomac River again.
PS: If you know of any good K Street personal injury lawyers, let Cranky know.
