I survived... but barely

This post is a couple days delayed, mainly because of the fact that since Friday it's been pretty uncomfortable to sit for more than a couple minutes at most. Today I can make it about 10 minutes before I have to get up and walk around--a little longer, even, if I'm sitting on a cushy couch.

I got a steroid injection in both hips Friday morning. The one I got in the left hip wasn't too bad because apparently the pain there was more superficial, so the injection wasn't as involved. The one on the right side, however, was another story.

I think I had steeled myself up for the whole process pretty well by imagining it to be as bad as I possibly could, so anything less was a relief. The injection itself was, as expected, very painful, even a little more so than the previous ones I've had. But I gritted my teeth, I scrunched up my face and I got through it, all with only a tear or two slipping past the barrier of my eyelids.

Problem is, that was the easy part. If you've never had a steroid injection before, it works like this--you get the shot to help with some kind of joint/muscle pain, but for a couple days afterward, before it starts relieving the pain, wherever you get the shot hurts a hell of a lot more. And this time, the after-the-shot pain was far worse than with any of the other shots I've had.

I got the shot first thing in the morning, then went into work. Normally, I might have just taken the day off, but my doctor's office is near where I work, which is 45 minutes from where I live. Since I had to make the drive up anyway, and since I doubted I'd feel like driving back right after I got the shot, I figured I'd go in. But as the day progressed I was in more and more pain. By the time lunch rolled around, from the back of my knee to the middle of my back felt like one big muscle knot.

I went to lunch with a friend to celebrate my new job, and the whole time I couldn't sit still because it hurt so much (standing and walking aren't too bad; sitting sends a shooting pain from the back of my hip down to my calf). He kept asking me why I didn't just go home, and I said because I didn't want to make the drive (driving is the only thing worse than sitting), and I was hoping it would let up by the end of the day. Eventually I guess I just looked like I was in so much pain that he offered to drive me home, which I finally relented to. I'm glad I did, because as I lay in bed that evening in a codeine-induced fog, the only thing I could think was I don't know how I would have made it home otherwise.

Anyway, this post has gotten much longer than I intended (which of course means my leg is going numb from sitting), so I'll wrap it up. I'm now back to about where I was before the shot and hopefully it will kick in and I'll start feeling a lot better over the next couple of days. I have to go back to the pain clinic in six weeks, and if I'm still having problems, I'll have to get another injection--so please cross your fingers that's not the case!!!