So my mother in law, she had a bad knee, didn’t go to the doctor until it messed up her back too.
So now her back is messed up. Goes to Kaiser, young Orthopedic surgeon wants to do basically the same surgery they did on Wolverine, replace 5 vertebrae, and fuse her spine. My wife goes ballistic. Drives down to LA, talks to her mom’s Cardiologist, sets up a second opinion.
My wife prepped the Cardiologist, told him just give it to her straight.
So they go down there for the meeting, Cardiologist says Sharon, if you have this surgery, you’re going to die on the table.
More senior Orthopedic surgeon says, Yeah, this makes no sense. You’d be in recovery for a year unable to move, and we’d have to redo it again in 5 years.
So no surgery for my mother in law. Death avoided.
So my wife, she’s having pain in her big toe. Goes to Ortho consult. He proposes fusing her big toe to the rest of her foot because the bone is rubbing on the knuckle. Seems kind of hinky to me, I encourage her to get a second opinion.
So she goes, meets with the business partner of the original surgeon. He says, yeah, this makes no sense. We’re going to fuse your toe, you’ll limp forever, your recovery will be 6 months, and we’ll have to re-do it in 5 years.
My wife asks him, why did your partner suggest all this? Surgeon replies Surgeons like to do surgery
I suggest she go to our martial arts dojo’s healing clinic. He’d already helped her quit smoking. So he looks at her foot, does his laying on of hands, your foot gates are closed. So he works with her for about 4 weeks, gives her weird Chinese herbs, she stops holding all her tension in the tendon that runs along the bottom of her foot, releases a bunch of body memories from being abused by her schizophrenic mom as a kid, toe is better.
Surgeons like to do surgery Get a second opinion.