This is potentially the worst writing I've done in years...

So, yesterday I went to the doctors, and got my painkiller shots in my back.

So, right now, my back feels wonderful. The rest of me is still catching up.

He also prescribed me a muscle relaxant, in our neverending quest to find something that makes the pain go away. Well see how that goes.

Anyway, getting shots is a bit of an ordeal. For me, at least. Because it entails driving from TO to USC's Medical campus. This can either take us less than an hour (like yesterday), or it can take us two hours (like it did a few months ago). It all depends on the number of car crashes, and whether they're on the 101 or the 410. And the time of the morning is somewhat influential as well.

Now, Mum and I have a tradition; second breakfast at McDonald's. I get the cinammon bun/twist/thingy and a coke, she gets the Sausage McMuffin and gives me her hash brown. Then we go to the correct building. Unquestionably, I will be the youngest person in the waiting room (what happens when you go to a rheumatologist). We will wait anywhere from half an hour two an hour and a half (never less than half an hour). That office is always running late.

When we finally get called back, we may wait even longer. (We expedited the process this time by having me get into the gown straight away, so we didn't have to wait even longer, after the check up to get the shots).

I have to lie down on the table for the shots. Otherwise I'll pass out. I don't have issues with needles, but this procedure makes me woozy.

My back was tense, from all the pain, so getting the shots makes me flinch. And because they're so shallow, it hurts only a little - though there is always a spot or two that makes me yelp. The doctor has to be careful not to puncture a lung. It doesn't help that I have a particularly fatless back.

Anyway, I get 12 to 20 shots in my upper back. I get plastered with band-aids - the super-sticky kind. I always say it's more painful pulling the band-aids off than getting the shots. They leave little square red bits. Thankfully, not every spot I get the shot needs a band-aid (torture, anyone?).

So, I was too woozy to go to the mall (which sucks, because the Glendale Galleria is five minutes away). We ended up there anyway, at the Steak Escape for lunch (which was probably stupid on my part, given my jaw issues).

The funny thing is, as exhausted as I was yesterday evening, I got some homework done. Not as much as I'd like, but some.

Who can explain the whims of the CFS? (Not the patient, the disease, of course.)

There is one spot on my back still particularly sore (obviously, he can't give me shots everywhere) but the rest of my back is in heaven.

Thank goodness for modern medicine.