In December 2024, I met with Dr. Scott regarding knee surgery. We arranged a date on March 20th for…read morethe surgery. The location of the surgery was to be a facility in Post Falls because he said the surgical facilities in Spokane were not clean enough. I was assured that all other visits would be in Spokane though. I was certainly dismayed to learn Spokane did not have adequate surgical centers.
Prior to surgery, I was told to make my first physical therapy appointment for 3-5 days after surgery. These were to be at the PT facility, not at my home. The reason given was he wanted be walking immediately. None of my many acquaintances who'd had the same surgery had been without having support right after surgery.
On the day of surgery, I had to be walking before leaving the surgical center, which I did. I had pills including 2 pain pills (oxycodone), 1 celebrex, and methocarbomal for spasms.
On Sunday, March 23rd, I had been in extreme pain since Friday and unable to find relief, so I called the doctor's evening support number. My live in housemate and caregiver had given me all prescribed medicines without any relief. Dr. Scott responded and I, as normal for me, I put the call on speaker phone. The take-a-way was that he said I was not in enough pain because my voice didn't sound painful enough. I told him that I was in extreme pain, no matter what my voice sounded like. I was assured again that, no, my voice did not have enough of a pain sound. I had no ability to respond to the fact that this Doctor could evaluate patients by the type of voice sound over cell phones. After hanging up, my care giver who had been standing by the bed asked if I needed to be screaming instead of talking. She was very concerned because of my obvious pain and my inability to find relief during the days prior to the call.
Considerable swelling made PT leg movements very difficult and painful, but I persevered. Eventually, I again tried to find some relief for the pain and stiffness. I felt from past experience that healing was not possible under extreme pain. The hydrocodone simply wasn't effective at all. I suggested to him that I should take some 14 year old morphine which was 15mg. This gave some relief, but after a week, I became concerned about the possibility of addiction. Since the surgery, I had been unable to eat much other than broth due to stomach upset and had lost about 10 pounds.
On April 9th, I had another meeting with Dr. Scot regarding conflicting treatments and reported records showing everything was fine. I wanted to be part of the treatment team so I could know what was expected of me, rather than conflicting requirements. I had hoped to have some sort of plan, other than "everyone is different, so it was impossible to make any plans or projections". At this meeting Dr. Scott denied ever saying there wasn't enough pain in my voice. When I insisted, he said we were not going to discuss it again. We also did not discuss any pain relief plan.
During week 5 (April 22nd), I lost 10 degrees of flexibility and was unable to do the PT. The PT person said I had to get the pain under control. I went to my medical doctor on Wednesday, April 23rd. who was also very concerned about the lack of pain control. She increased the original hydrocodone dosages by 50%. This time I could feel some relief and was able to have deep sleep for 2 hours. I have noted that the new dosage controlled the pain for about 3-6 hours before the throbbing pain returned. It is definitely a step in the right direction. She also decided to become my advocate when dealing with Dr. Scott. The change to every 6 hours was a huge difference from Dr. Scott's one tablet every 12 hours.
At this time, I have no confidence in Dr. Scott's credibility. It may be that he has some short term memory loss issues and should be checked for Alzheimer's or dementia. The fact that he was unable to remember patient care for 17 days is of great concern to me. I sincerely hope the longer term memory was not affected while he did the knee replacement. Is spite everyone being different, Dr. Scott has not been interested in treating differences. I don't think I can go through another surgery to repair bad results. I have been in pain for 6 weeks and diminishing range of motion and inability to sleep more than a few hours at a time due to the pain. According to the physical therapist, after weeks, permanent damage becomes a concern.
Most professionals realize there is a correlation between pain, lack of sleep, loss of appetite and healing. Dr. Scott is not one of them.
On April 30th, I again saw Dr. Scott, but with a list of questions, such as what are the steps I need to plan on for future success and what type of medications should I take. Both questions were ignored. I was again told everyone is different, but there was no treatment plan to accommodate differences.
