Torture Me

I have this herniated disc in my back. I usually tell people it's from running a half marathon in June (and I usually leave off the half), but it's probably just because I ate something wrong and twisted. Whatever the case, I've been seeing the chiropractor for a few weeks now to try and correct it before surgery.

I've never been to a chiropractor before, but I've only heard success stories so I was optimistic. However, today it dawned on me why the success rate is so high.

I've been seeing similarities for a while between the chiropractor's office, and torture scenes I've seen on movies. I go in to a room, get electroshock treatment, and then go to another room to see the doctor who asks me lots of questions I don't have the answers to:
"how did you do this?"
"A marathon"
"You can't herniate a disc from running"
"I don't know then."
"More electroshock."

Except that all of these "torture" devices feel really good. It's not that they are torturing me, but they are torturing me in reverse. It's genius. I think they're ahead of the Chinese on this one. And it must be great for business.

When I first came in they asked me my pain level. I said 9. They said on a scale of 1 to 10. Oh. 9.5 then. My leg doesn't feel any better now, but it's like every time they torture me in reverse and ask me what level of pain I'm in they are saying, "we are doing all this nice stuff for you and you don't feel just a little better? Not even a little?" So these days I say my pain is a two and hop up on the massage table. I think they're catching on though because today I got the best treatment of my life: the hydrotable. It was like being water boarded by an angel.

They may threaten me with love, candy and big spine-cracking bear hugs from the doctor... but I'm holding out with the "I feel better" because I know they've got the big guns in the back: Dr. oh so sexy (and single) VanFleet, the surgeon I see on Friday; and I feel like if I'm really insistent that my back/leg still hurts, I might just get that doctor/torture love affair I've been dreaming of since the explosion of popular "sexy doctor" shows on tv.