Duke Medical

One day at our campground, as Nancy was returning from morning coffee, she passed a fancy motorhome leaving the park, towing a new SUV - whose wheels were locked!  The SUV's tires were smoking, and the rims were sparking and leaving grooves in the pavement.  She made a U-turn and laid on the horn, and someone on the road was yelling and waving his arms, but the driver was oblivious.  He drove on, with Nancy following and honking, but he didn't stop until a half-mile later, when someone in his line of sight finally got his attention.

Sadly for the reputation of my demographic, it was an older gentleman at the wheel.  That's going to be a costly mistake for him.

I suspect he had left the towed vehicle in park - or possibly had the parking brake on.  That's the kind of situation that Nancy and I hope to prevent with our routine every time we hook up the pickup truck to the motorhome.  Nancy stands outside, I drive forward, and if the wheels aren't turning properly, or there's some problem with the connection, she screams and waves her arms and I stop and correct any issues before proceeding.  So far, so good.

The Raleigh-Durham area is rich in touristy things to do.  We spent a Sunday afternoon at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

It featured a large collection of jaw-dropping skeletons of whales and dinosaurs, plus exhibits explaining and detailing the evolution of life on Earth.  (Surprisingly, they didn't agree with the theories at the Creation Museum we visited.)  A unique feature of the museum was that as you walked along, there were a number of scientific research rooms, visible behind floor-to-ceiling glass, containing microscopes, computers, monitors, and other scientific paraphernalia.  In only one room were scientists seen - and you could hear their amplified voices - but this was the weekend, and during the week I suspect that the ongoing work of scientific research there could be observed from the museum floor.  That might well be fascinating.


On the evening before our last day at the Raleigh campground, as I began to rise from a sitting position, there was a severe pain in my right knee, and I cried out like a girly-man.  I was unable to put any weight on that leg with my knee flexed, even though I could stand upright without pain and walk almost normally.  It was very difficult to maneuver myself into the driver's seat of the motorhome, and it hurt to depress the brake pedal, so that my ability to drive us to new RV parks suddenly was at issue.

My self-examination of that knee was negative - no instability, not even any tenderness.  But I decided that I'd better get it examined professionally.  I learned that Duke Health, associated with the Duke University Medical School, had an Orthopedic Urgent Care clinic, and that sounded like where I should go, since we had a campground reservation on the Outer Banks for the following day and I didn't want us to miss it.

I registered into their system and eventually had an X-ray and was seen by a physician's assistant.  He said that the X-ray was essentially negative, and his examination of the knee was also unremarkable except for the pain elicited upon manipulation.  He did not commit to any definitive diagnosis but expected that things would slowly improve.  I was fitted with a knee splint and sent on my way.

It was an interesting day for me, less so for Nancy, who spent three hours in the waiting room, and was bored to distraction.  By the way, Nancy wants it known that she strenuously objects to my decision to wear shoes and socks (rather than sandals) with those shorts.  I know she's right; my excuse is that I was in pain and not thinking clearly.

The next morning my knee was somewhat improved, I was able to drive the motorhome, and our trip and this blog will continue.