A medical mystery

Since I am currently experiencing a rare spasm of health insurance, I just had an MRI done on my mysteriously injured hand. I have had chronic pain in my left hand -- specifically, in the little finger -- for about two years now, but during most of that time I've been uninsured. I did go to a free clinic in Durham once for this malady, but I could tell the doctor found me suspicious; all I got for my troubles and twenty bucks was the chance to watch coughing Latino children climb over chairs in the waiting room for two hours and a one sentence letter received in the mail a few weeks later: The X-ray of your hand was normal. The part written in invisible ink said, "...so at least come up with a plausible sounding excuse the next time you try to scam us into writing a hydrocodone prescription."

But it wasn't a scam. Normal X-ray or not, the pain has gotten worse over time. I don't remember exactly when it started, because it was a very gradual process: over months, a sensation developed gradually until it crossed some threshold and became pain. It comes and goes -- sometimes it's barely noticeable, sometimes it's unbearable. It's especially bad whenever there's a sharp temperature decrease, or when I jar it a certain way (thus utterly dashing my Winter Olympics 2014 dreams). So I was pretty thrilled when I finally was able to visit Dr. Harold Stokes, hand specialist of LSU Health. Dr. Stokes must be something special, because the two times I've seen him now he was being followed by several residents. Perhaps the residents are excited about the same thing that excites me about Dr. Stokes, which is that with a little squinting and imagination, he's not too far off from Doc Cottle of Battlestar Galactica! See if you agree. Yes, he's less craggy and certainly seems in a much better mood than Doc Cottle usually does, but then again -- with all due respect -- the problems he deals with probably cause significantly less stress. I'm considering bringing a cigarette next visit and seeing if he'd be willing to pose for a picture. Or is this in bad taste? In this day and age, I feel like asking a doctor to pretend to smoke a cigarette is sort of like asking a priest if he'd scrawl a pentagram on his frock for laughs. NOTE: I'm creeping my way through the third season right now, so no spoilers in the comments please.

But although he doesn't have Laura Roslin's life in his hands, Dr. Stokes does have my hand in his hands, metaphorically speaking and for a brief instance literally. After an initial examination and some very thorough X-rays, he said the following into his handheld voice recorder: "no restriction in range of movement. No outward sign of injury. However, X-rays reveal significant osteopenia in the middle phalanges." He turned to one of the residents. "Any idea what this is?" he asked. "No," she said. "I don't know either," he muttered, glancing again at my hand with mild interest. "We need an MRI."

I initially started this post with the intent of talking about the MRI itself, but now I have to go -- which means this one is going to be a CLIFFHANGER!!