Life of Wry

I got a cortisone shot today. Based on my experience last time, a little over a year ago, I was not expecting much, except a lot of unwelcome pain. This is my most unfavorite kind of pain: lying in a compromised position, unable to move, having something nasty injected into an already untouchably tender spot, experiencing an increasingly mounting pain, not being able to escape it, and not sure when it’s going to end. If ever.

I remember last time just hating it.

I wasn’t entirely sure the cortisone had any positive effect either, and wasn’t keen on going through all of that again to see if maybe it’d work better this time.

But for some reason, I decided to try.

It’s too early to know if it worked better/differently. Check back in a couple weeks. But I can report that the shot part was nothing like the experience the first time. It’s a bit shocking when the needle goes in, but the awful part this time lasted only a few seconds. I was kind of surprised (and a little embarrassed at my built up fear). And then, best of all, a river of numbing lidocaine (or a lidocaine-like solution) brought this remarkable sense of nothingness to an area that’s been just a relentless, nagging pain for months and months. You feel like you can take your first deep breath after what has felt like a million years of tentative, anxiety-tinged breathing. It’s just amazing.

I don’t think I’ll be quite as wimpy the next time I might need a cortisone shot.

No photos. Though I was tempted.