After a round of various thingies last week, we learned that our intrepid heroine (that's ME, smartass! hmph, flounce, flounce) still suffers from DHAC syndrome, regularly accompanied by IDK syndrome, as attested to by several doctors. (DHAC stands for "Doctor Hasn't a Clue" and was invented by my lovely friend Dave Langford when he heard about all the nonsense back in '93 or so; IDK is what I hear regularly from the doctors and simply stands for "I Don't Know" which, while I'm used to hearing it, can still be just a wee tad depressing, as I realized on Friday after hearing it. Again.)

I'm about to see the THIRD orthopedist in as many weeks. One of the negative things about medicine in recent years is that specialization has gone berserk. As a kid, I went to see Dr. Serbin, the orthopedist. He treated me for everything from sprained ankles (all seven of them, yes, seven, what's your point?) to dislocated finger (playing frisbee -dumb!) to diagnosing the original back thingy. Head to toe. Actually, I refer to Dr. Serbin as "our family orthopedist" as he did treat my grandparents, my parents, my sister and me. But he treated whatever bone-related mess I got myself into.

Now? Now we don't DO that. Dr. W is the spine guy I see; Dr. T is the hip guy. They're in the same practice but I've boinged back and forth between the two of them for the last couple of years because, well, DUH. Because I have spinal problems AND hip problems. Sometimes back problems give you hip pain, so it's sometimes hard to tell the cause of something. Because I' have severe curvature AND this weird fracturing of the pelvis and hip. Gack. But wait! Dr. T is the sort of hip guy who specializes (aieeee, that word again!) in hip replacement surgery. See, there's that thing again, that "why Andi fucking hates going to orthopedists". Because they're SURGEONS and they do SURGERY and that's what they're for. But I'm not someone who's likely to be surgery-bound any time soon. I don't surge.

So Dr. T, who, by the way, says I scare him, wants me to see Dr. D. and I have an appointment this week. He's ANOTHER hip guy but a different sort with a different sort of special specialty. Oh, my ears and whiskers.

Five years from now, I can hear it:

"I'd like to make an appointment. It's about my finger."
"Sure, left hand or right?"
"Er, left".
"Fine. Thumb or fingers?"
"Um, fingers?"
"Excellent and which finger is it?"
"It's my pinky."
"Oh I'm so sorry. Dr. P is our left pinky finger specialist but he's on vacation until June. Can it wait?"

Then five years after that it'll be:

"Which knuckle?"