Steemit Engagement Challenge Season5 Week2 : My medical experiences

Dear Fellow Members, we all go through some health-related experiences and some of them remain in your memory forever. My experience is probably a different one from what a normal person experiences.  

MRI of My Brain
  
This all started in November 2018, when I was returning from a service trip from Sydney to Canberra with my service engineer. I felt severe pain in my neck and left hand. I stopped the car at the next petrol pump and sat there for a cup of coffee. On resumption of the journey, I asked my coworker to drive from there as I was not feeling comfortable.

He looked at me suspiciously but did what I said. His house was before mine, so I dropped him off and drove back home, but I wasn’t comfortable. I had an early meal and went to sleep, but the next day I booked an appointment with my GP, and as some of you know, it could be anything between 2-10 days, but in my case, it was 3 days later.

I met my GP and told him everything. He suspected a wear and tear in my shoulder or left arm. He referred me to Canberra Hospital for an ultrasound, which I understand examines soft tissues. The next day, I was at Canberra hospital. They charged me AU$120 (about 300 STEEM). The doctor did my ultrasound but told me nothing about the outcome as the report is sent to the doctor who refers a patient.

There was nothing wrong with my tissues, so the doctor said nothing to worry about, but I had severe pain just under my neck and left pain. The doctor prescribed painkiller medicines and gel. But that was only temporary relief. I spoke with another doctor, who advised me to get a spondylosis test, which is usually a neck X-Ray, CT scan and MRI.

I had severe neck pain and stiffness, so I wanted to go for that, but it was the end of the year 2018 and my yearly vacation was due in a few days, so I decided to take this test in India. Let me mention here that I am insured for my health both in India and Australia by the same insurance company, Bupa, but their premium and terms & conditions are different in both countries. I get full compensation for whatever I spend in Australia, but in India, they pay nothing for a doctor’s visit or medicine unless I stay in a hospital for at least 1 day. However, dental treatment is not included in both countries.

I returned to my office and reported before leaving for my second home, which is about 50 kilometers from the capital. This place is suburban but has all the facilities for treatment as many medical and engineering colleges are here, away from the city but in a peaceful area. This area has a few good private colonies too. My wife was there in a house in one of these townships.

I visited a GP who prescribed me an X-Ray, and that confirmed that I had cervical spondylosis with two of the upper two out of seven bones, (Upper Ones) got joined, which stopped my blood circulation as the blood vessels got pressed so I was feeling difficulty in neck movement.

My doctor suggested that I consult a physiotherapist, which I did, and he started giving me traction and other physical exercises on a daily schedule.

That didn’t work. I changed two more physiotherapists, but nothing doing. One of the senior therapists even warned me that traction can cause a crack and that would paralyses my body. That was an alarming statement, so I consulted a famous neurosurgeon who was a witty person.

He jokingly said, “So you were consulting mechanics instead of expert engineers?”

  
I guess my surgeon friend @franyeligonzalez would understand better what my doctor meant.

I didn’t have time, so I asked for laser surgery. He prescribed me an MRI test. Two for my neck and two for my brain. I was afraid of MRI because I had heard about an accident in an MRI machine in which it pulled a man who was sitting in a wheelchair and had an oxygen cylinder with him. That man reached for the door of an MRI center while the MRI machine was on. The machine pulled him in and he turned into small pieces.

We know how powerful an MRI machine’s magnetic forces are. A 1.5T scanner is 30,000 times stronger than those produced by our Earth, and I had two of my teeth filled, so I assumed I had metal in my body and would never survive an MRI test, or my teeth would be pulled out of my mouth.

And look who was talking? An engineer with metallurgy as his expertise- me. I was scared to death

  
I immediately consulted my dentist, who confirmed that there was no iron in the metal that was used to fill my both teeth, but it comprised porcelain. I crosschecked it with an MRI expert, and he asked me to not to worry. I checked Google with all my knowledge about metals and metallurgy. But I found nothing wrong.

But Gosh! That was an horrific experience. The sound inside was simply unbearable.So I must say that I am not scared of anything related to doctors but this experience scared me

  

I got my MRI done, but my doctor said in my case, laser therapy won’t work, so I will have to go for traditional surgery where they will place a plate under each bone after separating each bone, and then I will have to take complete bed rest for three months. I was taking medicine regularly and feeling no pain. The MRI cost me 600 STEEM which was not compensated by my insurance company.

I was almost ready and had even received approval from my insurance company (the approximate cost of 20,000 STEEM), but my office asked me to postpone this operation for a few months because I had an important assignment in Sydney that required me to be there in the last week of August. My doctor said I could continue the medicine and come back in December for the operation. (Or I could have gone for one in Sydney or Canberra).

  
However, I took three months’ medicines from India with me and ate them regularly. The doctor said there was no need to take painkillers if there was no pain. Fortunately or unfortunately, my project was prolonged until March 2019, and then a lockdown happened and I could not come back even though the hospitals were not accepting any other patients but serious cases or only COVID-19 patients.

I came back to India in March 2021, when the lockdown was partially lifted. But I felt no pain in my neck or shoulder since October 2019, so I have now postponed my plan for an operation until the situation seriously demands it. But Gosh, I would never like to go inside a MRI machine unless of course they change that horrible sound to musical beats 😂

I would like to invite @petface, @lavanyalakshman and @edidiongeffiong to please come join this wonderful contest.

15% @colombiaoriginal