A Hair-Raising Experience!

If you've been keeping up, you'll know that I called in sick on Thursday. My back was hurting pretty bad and I didn't think I would survive another night in the Hive without some relief. Something other than comic relief, anyway.

I got into the doctors office this morning. I like my doctor, he's a good cat. But I'm beginning to suspect that anybody who is trained to manipulate parts of your body ie: doctors, physical therapists, x-ray techs, chiropractors, etc have all been trained on manuals written first by Vlad The Impaler and maybe refined by Josef Mengele. They always seem to feel that the best way to make you feel better is to make you do whatever hurts you the most.

"If it doesn't hurt or taste nasty, it can't be medicine." My Grandma always said that. I think she trained at that same school.

Doc starts out poking me with his fingers up and down my spine. I'm pretty sure at one point he replaced his thumb with a soldering iron. All the times he's muttering "Ooooo boy. I'll bet that hurts!"

Yeah, it did.

Then he had me lay on my back on the table and he wrapped me up like a pretzel and said "Deep breath" which hurt, and then said "Let it out" which hurt too. Then he dove on top of me like Jimmy "Super Fly" Snuka off the top rope and mashed me into the table. My spine made noises like I had laid down on a box of Fruit Loops.

That loosened me up for round two, where he had me lock my fingers behind my neck and he proceeded to put me in a full nelson and shake me like a terrier with a rubber chew toy.

More crunchy noises ensued.

He prodded me a few more times with the soldering iron then said "I'm going to give you a shot back there. That will help."

That sentence did nothing to make me feel better.

He returns with a nurse and one hand behind his back.

Oh.

Hell.

This can't be good.

He has me up against the table with my shirt pulled up and I feel his thumbs poking up and down my back. It feels like:

Poke poke doink! Moves up.

Poke poke doink! Moves up.

Poke poke doink! Moves up.

Poke poke doink!

I'm thinking to myself "Hell, that wasn't so bad!"

Then he moves back down to the lower point and I hear the cap pop off of a hypodermic needle. He says "Little stick."

Awwww..... snap. I thought he had already done that. Apparently he was just marking the spots with a pen. And I fell for it.

The first one wasn't so bad. A little stick and a little burning. No worries.

He moves up and I hear the cap pop off a second needle and I realize why he had them behind his back. There were four of them. Seeing that would have worried me.

The second and third ones weren't so bad either. After the third one the nurse made a joke and he started laughing and I almost did too. I said "Making me giggle while he's poking my spine with a needle is not really a good idea, you know." Doc just pats my shoulder and says "You'll be okay."

Now that last injection must have hit the sweet spot. That sucker went in and all of the hair on my legs shot straight out and my feet were suddenly soaked in sweat. That one hit something. Hopefully it was something good.

Doc told me to go home and relax and not do any heavy lifting for a day or so and take tylenol.

Man, I hope this works!