Last night was just the diagnostic, really.
After lots of sweaty broken sleep and trying to stay in bed, I really did try, I got up around 10AM. Half-crap dozing until 4am but not sleep as we normally know it, and then solid sleep until 7:30 or so, and then full-crap sleep until 10AM.
You know that when your sleep starts feeling timeless like when you are in a hospital it is time to get the diddley-f*ck right out of bed, right now. And it was. So I did.
I still feel like canned-creamed sh*t. Yes, the anesthetic they put in last night helped immediately afterwards, and it was really trailing off around 11pm. But now… holy f*ck. It should calm down in a day or two though.
What I’m saying is that even this process is just a bandaid, not the cure, which is to remove a disc or perhaps two. Doc said there were three that were problematic.
Can you imagine the epidurals and discectomies hundreds and thousands of years ago when they didn’t have readily available painkillers? (**eyeroll here**)
And even tho I’m whining this really isn’t worse than the bad days at the lab, and I go 8-12 hours there at times even when I’m bad off. This is a different kind of pain though.
Hey, that would be interesting – pain is one of those things that is VERY hard to describe or quantify. If you have one that you can only describe using far-out descriptors, say ’em here.
I’ll start: The other day the bad disc area in my neck ached so bad that it felt like it was being turned inside out. See what I mean? What the hell does that mean, really? But to me, that is exactly what it felt like.
Now, it feels like a series of infinitely sharp serrated scalpels are doing the jaws of life in that part of my neck. Very sharp, very bright. It’s a bright “twinkling star on a freezing winter night” kind of pain.
Lemur King's Folly 
No pain in my life now, nothing to speak of, but I have had some in the past for which I had colorful metaphors, for instance:
It feels like the doctor stuck a pirahna in my gut during the procedure and it’s occasionally taking a bite.
Or
It felt like someone stuck a red hot icepick in my ear, wiggled it around, and then pulled it back out.
Now, when a doctor tells you you’re going to feel some “pressure”, you just know it’s going to hurt.
When the doctor tells you that the procedure is really going to hurt and to brace yourself, it’s time to ask to be put asleep for the procedure.
I told them flat out – I want anesthetic. Cool thing was, one second they said “Ok, lets get started” and the next was “All right, can we get you to roll back over?” I said “That was it? You’re done? We just started.”
Sure enough, the clock moved 20 minutes in that eyeblink.
Doncha just love the “gonna feel a pinch” BS?
I love the pirahna metaphor. That’s truly vivid.
Ha! Yeah, that old “you’re going to feel a pinch” is a surefire warning that what you’re about to experience will be slightly less painful than having your intestines squeezed through a burning hot tube the size of a drinking straw.
That might make a great open thread some time. All the phrases and statements uttered by doctors, meant to allay any fears you may have, but in reality are a signal that something’s about to hurt like a sonuvabitch.
:,-( I hope you feel better soon buddy.
I have given birth without aid of epidurals, and have suffered through viral meningitis, and still can’t fathom the depth of what you are going through. I pray you have the fortitude, and that the treatment will alleviate your pain soon 😦