Where You Been, Boy? Chapter 2

The Old Man continues. Dr. Neurologist allowed as how he thought one of his compatriots "upstairs" would be the one to take me to the next level. Dr. Neuro is my kind of people; great sense of humor and an outgoing personality. For example, he asked me, "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain level?". I replied, " That's kind of subjective.....give me an example of a 'ten'. " His reply, "On your knees, banging on the door of the emergency room, begging for help, would qualify as a 'ten'. " "Ok, on that scale, I'm about a 'four'."

Quite refreshing since most doctors in my experience have had names like Humpy Thoroughgood IV, and talked while stroking a beard.

Soooooo, upstairs to the "pain management specialist" I hobbled. Nice guy, all business, and at least, not named Humpy. He took down his model of the human spine and began to outline the course of treatment.

"I believe what is called for here is the injection of a steroid substance (with a name longer than Kermit's tongue). I'll be using X-ray guidance to show me exactly where to place the needles in the facet joints in your lumbar area." Needles? In my spine? Can we throw in a waterboarding session just to break up the monotony? Oh, great! I had survived the demented hunchback only to be confronted with Dr. Stickfiend.

The big day arrived. "Good morning, Mr. Jackson. You can come on back now". Harmless sounding and friendly on the surface, it carried all the terror of "Please report to the Principal's office". I looked bravely at Miss Martha, gave her that whistling-past-the-graveyard smile, and headed off to the land of adventure.

"Unbutton and unzip, then lie face down on the table", said Miss Harmless & Friendly. With great fanfare, Dr. S entered and said sprightly, "All set?". "Yessir", I croaked. After some whirring and bumping about, he said, "Now, you'll feel a little stick and some burning, then a little pressure". Caution flag number two waved in my mind. When doctors admit to such as "little stick" or "some burning", best you bite down hard on the bullet. The "little pressure" sort of resembled Babar the Elephant standing on my back.

Eight injections later, they had me sit in a nice chair and plied me with fruit juice. They said they needed to observe me for a while. For what? Was I possibly going to morph into the Incredible Hulk? Or maybe they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to go over to the emergency room and bang on the door.

Stay close, the final chapter will give you a look into the crystal ball.