Chiro cracks-ups #1

So this is an entertaining story, to say the least. This is the story about a man who I will refer to as the Indian. No, he was not literally a Native American. He was as white as me, but you will understand why I call him that soon enough. I have completely changed the names of those involved, as well as clinic location, and don’t worry; I’m not talking about you, so don’t get excited.

While interning at a privately owned clinic, Victoria treated this particular patients’ mother a few months prior to seeing him. Her treatment ended after a series of only about four or so adjustments due to the fact that Medicare would no longer pay for her care. After telling her this, her story of how severe her pain was, quickly changed from just bad to all of a sudden life threatening. The clinic Doctor and Victoria soon discover that she was trying to use the Medicare system to receive free care. So they documented the accurate findings and she never returned. This actually happens a lot to any of us in the health-care field and is one of the many reasons why our insurance system is such a mess. Don’t get me started.

Some of her visits were often strange too in fact; on one particular visit she complained to Victoria that she was having restless leg syndrome symptoms and that she experienced them off and on over the past few years. Victoria asked her some questions about it and she promptly told her that she knew what the cause was. Victoria said, “oh really, what is it?” “The cause of restless leg syndrome is sex”, she firmly told her, “ but I know you and all the other Doctors won’t believe me.” Before she could ask her exactly what she meant by this, the clinic Doctor came in the room, so she wasn’t able to ask her more about it. She did tell the clinic Doctor about her having restless leg syndrome though…but not the patients theory behind it. Upon her next visit, Victoria asked her if she had any more symptoms of restless leg syndrome and they had miraculously vanished. She never mentioned again this “cause” and Victoria never quite understood what she meant by it.

One day a few months later, Victoria received a call from this Medicare patient asking if she could treat her son because he had badly hurt his back. Victoria said absolutely and told her to have him at the clinic that day by 3:00. Part of her dreaded seeing this patient because there was always something strange about his mother; she just always had the feeling that something wasn’t right. So 3:00 came, and Victoria was paged to the front desk saying the patient was ready. The strange feelings Victoria had when she first saw his mother was nothing compared to how she felt when she walked into the waiting room and saw both the mother and the new patient, the Indian. So there he sat, this forty-two year old man, slumped over, barely able to make eye contact with Victoria, either because his eyelids were so heavy or because he made no attempt at lifting his head. She introduced herself and then instructed them back to the exam room. The Indian grabbed Victoria’s hand and demanded that she help him stand up. Victoria is not really the type of person that allows this fake, attention-seeking behavior, but she had a sense that this was going to be a difficult appointment so she bit her lip and helped this apparent handicapped man to the exam room.

Once they got back to the exam room, Victoria started glancing over the paperwork that he had “completed” up at the front. She was quickly thrown off and don’t know what happened, because the ladies at the front desk normally did a pretty good job about checking to make sure paperwork was properly completed. Short from his name, there was hardly anything filled out and what was filled out was worse than chicken scratch. Nothing was legible. On one section, there is a picture of a human body, which you are supposed to mark with an X on the area of concern. Well he simply drew an X over the entire drawing. So Victoria thought to herself great, this is going to be fun. So she said, “So um, did you have some difficulty filling out this paperwork?” “uuhhh?” He groans. “Why did you not fill out the paperwork? I can’t read any of this,” she said. It was VERY hard to understand this guy between the mixture of southern twang, exaggerated pain groans, and desire to be a pain in the a$$. So he says, “eeeh can’t move my arms,” as he’s slumped over on the exam table. “Okay,” she said, “we will just have to do this the long way then and I will verbalize every question to you.” “uuuh ok,” he grunts back to her.

Victoria proceeded with the questions and at one point she started looking around for the hidden candid camera. This dude claimed to have had a train hit him in the right shoulder going full speed and he was able to lean forward and stop the train. He said he had several surgeries and his entire ribcage had screws holding everything together, he had shoulder replacement, hip replacement, and a few other things. He then explained in great detail about how several times an Indian from Oklahoma would climb on top of his back and start whacking him over and over again on the shoulder with his tomahawk. He would say, “Yea man, this was the chief of the tribe I have occasionally smoked peace-pipe with.” Oooooh ok, gotcha. It’s beginning to make sense to Victoria now. So then she looked over and noticed that his mom is in her chair shaking hysterically with laughter. Are you freaking kidding me? He saw Victoria looking at her and he said, “Yea she always enjoys my stories.” So clearly she was quickly approaching her breaking point. He then tried to tell her that he never smokes. She thought that was interesting seeing as how his fumes filled, not only the exam room, but also the entire clinic…maybe he doesn’t count “peace-pipe” as smoke.

Victoria persisted on with the actual physical examination portion of the appointment now, which turned into a complete joke to say the least. It was obvious that he was making a complete mockery of the whole thing, so she stopped him just a few minutes in and said, “ok, I know you are having a lot of fun here and all but if you are in legitimate pain like you say you are, you need to start taking this more seriously so we can actually finish all of this today.” “I AM TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY! I WANT YOU TO CURE ME DOC!” he screams. So her blood is boiling now by this point. It is difficult when you are either interning under someone else or working for someone else because you can’t react the way you wish you could…which could be either a good or a bad thing. Victoria decided she could go no further and needed help with this particular patient. He put absolutely no effort into anything and all the while he is feeling great about himself serving as comedy central for his mother. The straw was that he started being suggestive about Victoria in general. Saying things like he couldn’t wait for her to put her hands on him and that she had really long, strong-looking legs. You know the usual kind of “flattery” that begs for a heel to the crotch. So she had enough and excused herself to go ask her clinic Doctor what she should do about the patient.

Her assigned clinic Doctor actually wasn’t there that day, which was probably a blessing in disguise. Although he was a great Doctor… his personality was just a little too…should we say timid, for this type of situation? She went to one of her favorite clinic Doctors whom I will refer to as Doctor Williams. Victoria explained the situation to Doctor Williams and she realized after telling him everything just how riled up she had gotten. She was surprised she got so upset about it all, but good grief! But was there to help this guy and he was trying to make a fool of her! Thank goodness Doctor Williams was on the same page as she was and once she finished explaining the situation with the Indian character, Doctor Williams says, “Oh so he’s forty-two years old and still lives with his mommy? Well we are dealing with quite the intellectual individual now aren’t we?” See why she loves Doctor Williams?

Victoria and Doctor Williams head back in to the exam room and in a matter of minutes, both the Indian and his mom had quickly changed their demeanor when informed by Doctor Williams about how their attitude had better change or they would be escorted out immediately. Doctor Williams then proceeded to tell the both of them that this was a professional environment and there were certain expectations of conduct that the patients were to exhibit. He then laid down what was expected of the Indian and asked if he was going to cooperate with the remainder of the exam. Now very agitated, the Indian agreed to proceed. Doctor Williams led him through the remainder of the exam in a very factual manner. Victoria was thankful to have gone through the entire situation with this patient early on her career, because she was able to see how to deal with problems while still under the guidance of another Doctor.

After completing the exam, the Indian was sent to receive full body x-rays because of all of his past “trauma” and then they told him he had to come back the next day for his report of findings and adjustment, because the appointment had already gone on for over two hours. He was surprisingly not too upset about having to come back the next day and Victoria was honestly hoping for a no-show on this one. Later that day they were able to access the Indians records and much to their amazement (note the sarcasm) there was absolutely no evidence of surgery, trauma, or any other deformity. Well except for some evidence of “peace-pipe” smoke in his lung tissue.

Much to her disappointment, the next day came and the Indian arrived for his appointment right on time. She began the appointment by explaining what they found on the x-rays…or actually what they didn’t find. No, she wasn’t about to let all of his lies about his “surgeries” slide. And she was of course, excited to lecture him about the effects his “peace-pipe” had on his lungs, even though he insisted it was helping him with his asthma and allergies. His attitude had significantly improved even though he still gave her the creeps and continued to try to insist that she help him in and out of chairs.

For that initial appointment, Doctor Williams wanted to make the first adjustment, which was more than fine with Victoria. Getting the Indian to relax was no easy task and he made the process way more difficult than it should have been. As soon as Doctor Williams had gotten to his mid back area, in between his shoulder blades, the Indian started screaming that the Indian chief had his tomahawk stuck in him again. Doctor Williams followed through with the adjustment in that area and then the Indian leapt off the table exclaiming that he pulled the tomahawk out and “cured” his pain. That was when Victoria officially lost it. How can people be this nuts? She bust out laughing and Doctor Williams couldn’t resist either.

The Indian continued to come to his appointments throughout the remainder of his treatment plan (or actually until his mother didn’t want to pay anymore) and they made a great deal of progress. Victoria always had to block out a good amount of time after his appointment in order to document everything that was said during the Indians visits. In addition to all of the questionable Indian “herbs” he claimed to use, not a visit would go by without him trying to get Victoria to go out to dinner with him. He also had some pretty interesting stories about owning some oil wells in the Middle East and was bringing in “billions” each day. I don’t exactly know what billions he was referring to when his 75-year-old mother had to pay for his Chiropractic adjustments.