How Telemedicine Saved my Weekend

How remote medical attention from a generous friend saved my "six-monthiversary" celebration.

Wikipedia defines telemedicine as “the use of telecommunication and information technologies in order to provide clinical health care at a distance.”  It uses various communication mediums like telephones and the Internet to connect doctors with patients who live far away from medical services or cannot easily travel.  Medical records can be sent to doctors in another location, or a doctor may examine a patient remotely with phone and video devices.  Telemedicine can be used in emergency situations when a patient in critical condition will not be able to reach a hospital in time.

I spend my weekends in Cedar City with my husband, Brandon, who attends SUU.  We live just one mile from a hospital.  So how did telemedicine become necessary to save my weekend?

Brandon and I were looking forward to celebrating six months of marriage on Saturday.  But on Friday night, Brandon, in a fairly characteristic fit of restless athletic ability, decided to do a handstand in our living room.  Just as he balanced his feet above his head, I saw him make a very odd face.  He told me his left shoulder had dislocated.  Here we go again, I thought.

Since a minor bicycle accident over a year ago, Brandon’s shoulder has been prone to pop out of its socket during mildly strenuous or even normal activities.  In August for instance, Brandon woke up in the morning, let his left arm slide off the edge of the mattress, and felt his shoulder pop out of the socket.  We spent the morning in the emergency room and left several hundred dollars poorer.  Brandon didn’t have insurance.  Later, the ER doctor billed us separately, siphoning off more money.

So when I realized Brandon was stuck upside down on his head with a shoulder joint that found amusement in trying to wander out of its cubby hole (this became very funny later), getting him right-side-up without worsening the injury wasn't the only thing I was worried about.  The family finances were not going to take kindly to another ER visit without insurance.  That could mean only one thing: we had to do this ourselves.

Unfortunately, majoring respectively in choral education and English did nothing to prepare us for self-treatment in a medical emergency (in retrospect, I should have spent more time playing the board game of the Worst Case Scenario Survival Manual instead of studying).  After I helped Brandon ease out of the headstand onto the floor, some painful, experimental wiggling of his shoulder convinced us we needed help.  So we called up an acquaintance from our ward who is an ER doctor.  We didn't know that he is something of a specialist in reducing dislocations without anesthetic.  He was out of town and couldn't come over himself, but he generously offered to walk us through some methods to fix Brandon’s shoulder on our own.  Enter telemedicine!

Over the phone, our friend talked us through how to rotate Brandon’s arm along the floor in a snow-angel motion so that his shoulder would pop back in.  When that didn't work, he emailed us a PDF of another auto-reduction method.  We tried it and then modified it slightly and Brandon’s shoulder popped back into place!  We were so relieved.  Brandon improvised a sling for his shoulder and all he had to worry about after that was sore muscles.

So thanks to telemedicine and a generous friend willing to work free of charge, just 24 hours after that ill-fated hand stand, Brandon and I got to enjoy celebrating together the “monthiversary” of our first six months of marriage. . .without having to discuss which of our possessions we could hawk on Craig’s list to help pay the bills.  I have seldom been so thankful for digital technology!