Pain Management
I went to get a back injection last week. I have to get them periodically for back pain. The doctor is Iranian with just a hint of an accent. He moved to America when he was 4 years old. A very matter-of-fact kind of guy that seems more like a mechanic than a doctor, but he's done over 40,000 of these injections so I like him and have confidence he knows what he's doing. When I went in for the first shot I didn't know what to expect. They had me lie down on my stomach and clipped a little doohickey on my index finger to monitor my heart rate. One would think they were monitoring so that if my heart rate went up they could administer some type of sedative to calm me down. But that was not to be. As I felt the needle going into my back I got nervous and my heart rate did indeed jump up. At that point the doctor yelled at me loudly "CALM DOWN BUDDY!!" which actually worked because I was so shocked I forgot about being nervous.
