To the Surgery Suite and Back

It's my second time to go inside the surgery suite at Medical City. The first one was during my tonsillectomy several years ago. This time, however, the visit will be brief and pain-free.

I was about to have another lumbar epidural steroids injection. It's basically a way to inject a type of steroids (cortisone) directly into the affected area to reduce the inflammation.

During my first shot more than a year ago, it was done on the pain management clinic. This time, their protocol changed, and it is now required that the procedure be done under a flouroscopic xray guidance. So, even with a simple procedure, I still had to be admitted before my trip to the surgery suite, where the uber-xray (they called it the c-arm) is located.

So butt-naked and sterile, I was on the surgery table, with a long needle in my back. The doctor injected the dye so they could see where the drug would travel up my discs. I wish I could see what the doctor was looking at the x-ray monitor, but I couldn't without my glasses on.

The dye injection followed by the steroids would just have taken 5 minutes but since there were residents and interns at the room, the doctor felt that he needed more time to discuss every step of the procedure to the young doctors, and allowed the needle at my back to stay longer than usual.

I wouldn't mind actually that female doctors could see my naked butt or even that gay nurse, but having to grit my teeth in pain while fluids were travelling up my discs and a rather long needle sticking behind me for a period far longer that it would usually take, it didn't make sense to me at the time.

I was just too glad that the procedure was over and that the pain was almost gone and that I am back at the office, ripped and ready to play basketball this afternoon :)