Muddling with Western Medicine

So for all of you who have seen me hobble around tiny-Tim style this semester.....taken me to get MRIs, X-rays (thank you janelle), or given me ice-packs or ankle braces......I think I have finally figured out the source of my pain.

As originially suspected, I do in fact have anterior compartment syndrome....often only found in cross country runners, I had a very successful trip to the physical therapist today which showed this. (basically my calf muscle was tight....caused the front shin to be tightened as well, pulls up the bottom of my foot and makes walking hurt....and in turn, all of it more tight and painful).

But why does having an "answer" signal completion to me? I just now have some actual stretches to do....and some more physical therapy before this all gets settled out. It is not complete at all.....I just now have some language to use.

Is it because of human nature's need for some sort of clarity....or is even that itself a western concept, looking for an "answer" or "diagnosis" that makes medicine into a I have a problem...you have an answer....boom, fixed! kind of mentality?

I have a lot of friends who think "alternatively" about medicine.....well as Donna Haraway would say.....or would that be some other crazed technocrat....?.......well to look at medicine outside of the scientific model or to get out mindset into thinking of medicine as just as faliable or potentially uncertain as any other "soft science" or thing in life.

I think before this time, I've felt like no one really understood me or was really listening to what was going on.....so maybe in that way this also touches on patient-doctor interactions....Well regardless.......I think there's an end to all this madness.