cww.blog!

I flew to Houston on Tuesday, and at some point between parking my car at the Pittsburgh airport and getting on the plane, my back started to hurt. Like, really hurt. By the time we were in the air, my back felt like it was on fire from the pain.

I had a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I picked up two packets of extra strength Tylenol, each of which contained two pills. I took the contents of one packet along with about a liter of water and a Millionaire Margarita (which actually only cost $14 at some bar where the bartenders say "hola, amigo!" when you sit down), and after deciding that wasn't helping around the midpoint of my connecting flight, I took the other two Tylenol. None of which seemed to do anything for the pain.

The following day, in Houston, I visited my "family" doctor, whom I hadn't seen in seven or eight years, and he prescribed narcotics, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatory agents. Yesterday, I went back for a follow-up, noted the pain was worse, and was prescribed steroids, more potent narcotics, and X-ray series for my chest and back. The chest X-ray was performed in case my lungs had something to do with the problem, and I can only assume the back X-ray was done to determine whether my spine was doing gymnastics without me. Alas, both X-ray series were clean. Which is a good thing. But also a bad thing.

So, here I am, back in Pittsburgh, with five prescription bottles, back pain that's only getting worse, and no diagnosis. This seems to happen once every few years, and it's really starting to worry me. After all, my current prognosis is "it'll probably get better in a few days."

For those of you who are curious, my current list of medications reads something like Darvocet, Mobic, Soma, Vicodin, and Prednisone. I really hope I don't need to go begging to my doctor here in the 'burgh for more pain medication when all this dries up.

I'm off to bed now, surely to wake up in several hours wondering why someone is stabbing me with ice picks...

Oh, and by the way, if you ever take Prednisone before getting on an airplane (or shortly after getting on an airplane, as I did this morning), I highly advise putting a lot of food in your stomach, too. The turbulence during landing in Charlotte today didn't exactly help things, but without slow, deep breaths, I would have undoubtedly have been feeling around seat-back pockets for barf bags.