Pain in the Neck

Today I had my neck stabbing quarterly meeting. I have been seeing the same neurologist for six years now, he has moved four times in that time and gotten richer of course. But then so have I. He is Indian and very affable. Yet, he stabs me in the neck, with a needle, from behind, once every three or four months. It is a thirty minute process; there are about 18 injections; one felt like it hit my skull. He has some sort of machine, and it detects the vibrations in the muscles; the ones in my neck are off the chart, they make a buzzing crackling sound, just like static. So I need to get shot up with BoTox to keep things in line, calm those specific muscles down. It's called Spasmodic Torticollis, or a Cervical Dystonia. It is kinda a pain in the neck.


I remember my father sitting on the couch one day when I came home from 4th grade, he had a big bandana wrapped upside around his head, packed with ice. Why I asked? He refused novocaine and all other numbing agents and had had two teeth pulled out of his head. There were huge bulges around his cheeks, where the ice was. No medicine, but there was a large bottle of bourbon whiskey in front of him. My sister wanted to kill him, after all, he almost passed out in the elevator on the way home. I think she drove him home. That must have hurt.

I remember a lot of things. And they really don't hurt as much as they used to, before, when I was younger.