Testing My Nerve

Joan. Always on time. Always so helpful. She goes to my church. 

I went to St. Joe’s for my nerve test yesterday. Joan drove me, of course. She’s so sweet. She takes me to physio, too. And shopping. I can’t thank her enough, although I give her twenty dollars a week for gas. My appointment was for 11:45. I only waited perhaps ten minutes.

The test was interesting. And painful. The interesting part was when the doctor fastened wires to my leg and foot, and directed an electrical current through a nerve in my lower leg. It was brief and a bit frightening. But it didn’t really hurt. Actually, Ms J, it was a lot like touching an electric fence. You know, the kind farmers use to contain cattle in a field. It made my foot bounce unbidden. The second part of the test was not so benign.

The doctor inserted a needle into the muscle in my leg, beside the shin bone. It didn’t hurt much. Then he attached a wire with an alligator clip to the needle.

“OK. Try to raise your foot,” said the doctor, a neurologist. “Don’t move your leg. Just the foot.”

I tried to raise my foot and was rewarded a small movement, about two inches or so. I heard a crackling sound from his computer beside the bed. It sounded like static electricity, like a radio tuned away from a station.

“We’re measuring the electrical current in your muscle here. Try it again now. Raise your foot. Hard. Try REALLY hard.”

I tried again, this time grunting with the exertion of it. I do this all the time, Ms J. Barbara has me do it at physiotherapy. And I do it at home on my own. But I can only move that foot a little. It’s more than I could achieve a month or two ago, but it’s still not much.

The doctor poked at the computer keyboard and squinted. From my position on the bed, I could see only a blue glow in the round lenses of his eyeglasses. He removed the needle and then inserted another one in another part of my leg. After hooking up the wires, he spoke again.

“Wiggle your toes, Dale,” he said.

I did the best I could. The speaker crackled again.

“OK,” said the doctor as he pulled that needle out. “Let’s get some readings on your foot.”

He put another needle, a larger one, vertically into the top of my foot. That one hurt. It wasn’t unbearable though. I remained silent while the doctor adjusted the needle and then fixed the alligator clip to it.

“Raise your big toe now,” he said.

I tried, but I couldn’t move it.

The doctor took something and touched my big toe.

“Can you feel that?” he asked.

I told him yes.

“Is it sharp or blunt?”

“Blunt I think.”

“How ‘bout now? Sharp or blunt?”

He was pricking my foot with a needle. It hurt.

“Ouch!” I said. “That one’s sharp!”

“So you don’t have much feeling in your big toe.”

Shit. I could have told the man that. If he’d asked. Fookin’ eejit.

He removed the needle from the top of my foot and inserted another one the same way, an inch to the right. That one really hurt. I drew in my breath.

“Yeah, that one hurts a bit. Sorry,” said the doctor. “We’re almost done.”

I tried moving my foot and toes again while he took more measurements and entered them into the computer. Then he uttered the words patients dread hearing.

“This one will feel really uncomfortable, I’m afraid. I’ll be as quick as I can. Try to hold still.”

And with that, the man drove a needle – a long, fat needle – into the side of my foot, below the ankle and pushed it forward through the muscle there, nearly to my baby toe. I gritted my teeth hard and was reminded instantly of the new filling in my back tooth. I don’t know which hurt worse, Ms J – my foot or my sodding tooth!!

Dr. Mengele took his readings there, and then withdrew the sharpened, metal probe. It hurt just as bad coming out. Every bloody centimeter. He moistened a bit of cotton with some alcohol and handed it to me.

“Just apply some pressure there.”

The puncture was bleeding! I did as I was told. The doctor disappeared in another room to view and interpret the data he’d saved while I sat up and pulled on my pants and shoe and socks. Shoe and socks, Ms Journal. One shoe. One stupid plastic walking cast. Removable, thank goodness.

I was dressed when he returned.

“Well, I don’t see any sign of permanent damage to that nerve, Dale. Clearly, it’s been injured due to the trauma of the fracture. But I think it’s encouraging that you have some movement there on your own. Have you noticed any improvement since you began physiotherapy?”

I told him I had, only the improvement was incremental and at a glacial pace.

“Shouldn’t it be improving more quickly by now, Doc?” I asked.

“The body doesn’t all heal itself at the same rate, unfortunately,” was his reply. “Skin repairs itself quite quickly. Notice your scar? It’s completely healed. The bone will take a bit longer. And nerves? Well, nerves take the longest. No one really knows why. They just take a long time to heal. Sometimes, they never do. I think you’ll find that you’ll regain most of the movement in your foot, but it’ll take at least a year. Probably fourteen or fifteen months.”

“Is there anything I can do to expedite this process?” I asked him.

“Nope. Not really. Just continue your physiotherapy and be patient.”

It was lunchtime and he was ushering me toward the door.

“I’ll send these results to Dr. Roscoe. He’ll make his recommendations for your return to work. When do you see him next?”

“May 24th,” I said. “A week from tomorrow.”

His hand was on my back now, gently urging me out into the hallway.

“OK then. Well, good luck. Take care.”

The door closed softly behind me and off I went toward the elevator.

I’ll recover fully. Probably. I’ll return to work soon, but it’ll be next summer sometime before I’m finally as good as new again.

My word, Ms J! I never imagined a broken leg would be such a long ordeal.

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