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GBO Patient Diary: Appointment 2 - MRI — Getting to the bottom of it

In our continuing series, we’re following a real GBO patient, Gio, from diagnosis all the way through treatment at Great Basin Orthopaedics. Be sure to check back for updates as we follow the journey, which is documented by his mother, Paige.

If you'd like to catch up: 

Appointment 2: June 3, 2020

We got an MRI scheduled within a few days of our first appointment, and I asked for results to be sent to me as well as Dr. Hayes. The next day, I got an email with a link to the results. These reports are not written for patients — they are written for medical providers, but I could tell it was pretty serious. “Disruption of the anterior talofibular ligament,” “Grade 2 sprain of the calcaneofibular ligament,” “Complete disruption of the deltoid ligament,” “edema,” “effusion.” I decided to Google the diagnoses while waiting for the report to be sent to GBO. I also emailed my father (a retired orthopaedic surgeon in Arizona). “He needs total ankle reconstruction,” my dad told me.

Here's the copy of the report, which I downloaded. And my initial takeaways (all indicating my sense of alarm) are in red: 

I scheduled a follow-up with Dr. Hayes and chose to let him break the news to my son, as I had no answers for the inevitable questions he would have.