May 1

    I had the notion that when May arrived, I would document my thoughts as to my elective knee surgery on May 21.  I felt the need to first write a kind of prologue to justify my blog entries, but, really, why would I even have had such a thought. This is my blog and will disappear when I want it to:  remember, nobody cares.
    With the theory of self, and the premise that nobody knows what happens to you, or what makes you into the kind of person you are, or are becoming, here is my Knee Journal as of today.  It proves the aforesaid, in that there is not a living person who could reprise  my medical events of the past year. 
      Before this past year, I would have an annual mammogram, annual visits to ophthalmologist, cardiologist  and gynocologist.  And dental cleaning, usually one per year. ( Except for horrific year of 2003; since then, annual visit to oncologist-hope to keep it that way.) I would schedule colonoscopy every 5 years.  Until the last 5 or 6 years I didn't even have a Primary Care doctor, didn't need referral for insurance, so Primary was unnecessary.  I received my flu shot at Rite Aid.  All bases covered, in 5 or 6 medical visits per year.
   But on April 26 of 2012, I started on the journey of many, many medical visits. I have a record of 86 visits for one or another types of medical interactions in that one-year period.   Except for 5 visits , which required sedation in some form and therefore a driver,  I attended by myself.  I underwent those visits and procedures, and not a single person, in most cases, knew any of the details, or of the visits themselves. Relating your doctor's visits is like trying to tell someone of your dreams; nobody wants to hear.  I can't even imagine a reality where anything otherwise  would be true. I was a patient of at least 16 doctors this past year; probably nobody could name half of them.  My point is that you are not only your best advocate, but in the truest sense, your only advocate.  Nobody knows what you live through.