Near the end of my Florida visit in 2005 I had an episode of this same "back spasm". One of the remedies then was physical therapy which worked very well for me. On the first day of my last week of scheduled therapy the facility had changed hands and employees and the upshot was I didn't like any of them and never returned.
I went for my first appointment of this round of therapy and found that the therapist is the same guy I had liked at the other place. I am pleased as punch. He remembered me only vaguely but that was ok. I am scheduled for three times a week for four weeks.
Then, this afternoon I went for a cortizone injection. I was given a choice of locations, Nine Mile and Greenfield or Twelve Mile and Haggarty. I chose the Greenfield location since they could get me in almost two weeks earlier than the other one.
There was a little mapped diagram of the location that made it look like I could go right up Greenfield and turn left into the little black dot that was the Providence Pavilion Medical Facility.
Any of you old time Detroiters remember what is at Nine Mile and Greenfield. That's where Northland is. There are streets and drives and parking structures that don't appear anywhere on the little diagram. To say nothing of the strip malls and traffic. And to say nothing of the big black fence that encloses the Providence Pavilion. Once I found my way into the fenced area I find that there are about 20 parking places with additional parking indicated by an arrow that lead god-knows-where.
Rita and I were talking, when this was first scheduled, about days of yore when cortizone injections were administered in the doctor's office. I had gotten at least one in my back way back when Adrienne was a teenager and Rita had gotten at least one in her knee before her first replacement. Why, we wondered, did it now have to be done at a special facility.
I was lucky enough to get one of those 20 spaces and made my way to the proper office. Once in the inner-sanctum, the doctor indicated on my paperwork introduced himself to me and then to two other doctors. There was another woman there but she must have been a lowly technitian and wasn't introduced. They were all wearing those leaded x-ray aprons. It turns out this injection must be given while viewing the area through an x-ray machine. Who knew?
The main doctor, the only male in the room, was across the way in conversation while one of the females administered to me, explaining each step; this is going to feel cold; you're going to feel a pinch; there will be pressure. I had the feeling that this was a learning experience for the female crew.
Anyway, they did a bang-up job. Oh, yeah, everything still hurts but I have high hopes for the passage of time.
I was ready for some wheels. The debate started about wheelchair vs scooter. There were a lot of negatives in a scooter, especially in Michigan weather. So I opted for a manual wheelchair.