Facet Joint Injections

Well yesterday was a whole new thrilling experience – my first crack at having some facet joint injections.

Was absolutely cacking it as Hawksey has had it done in the past and was giving me his 'oh it's really not that bad' spiel when clearly his face was saying 'it's absolutely foul'. and Liz T has also had it done and said I might need a week off afterwards to let the injections sink in and to recover!

So it went like this

– Get to Parkside, have stressful conversation at the last minute with BUPA knobjockey, insisting he contact the surgeon right at that moment to get the procedure code (despite the bloke clearly being in the hospital already, waiting for me, his only patient of the day)

– Walk into CT suite to find surgeon bloke and two nurses (both looking rather sympathetically at me)

– Quick and slightly confusing chat about just how many needles there are, doing what job, and stuck in me for what amount of time…. 

– Remember he mentioned two sites of degeneration to be treated, and work out this means 4 needles. Joy.

– I fix him with my steely eye (hard to look 'with resolve' when you're wearing a bloody surgical gown) mention how goddamn horrific my bone marrow biopsy was at Parkside and that if this is anything like it I will be legging it away. He assures me it's not.

– Think about Margo as I lie face down on the scanner bed – who hates needles and would probably have run right back out of the room at this point. Quite tempted to do exactly that.

– Lie down, get swabbed and covered in that blue surgical sheeting they use – except I am wide awake right under it. Feels like a horror movie gone bad, eek.

– Remember Caroline (a physio) from hockey's comment about 'well, at least it's in your neck so you won't see the needles coming'. Not sure what is worse as am trying to watch his reflection in the x-ray area windows.

– Get scanned by the CT machine to check where neck bones and joints are

– Man starts doing his thing – beginning with the 'higher up' site – which appears to be so far up my neck its in my hairline – nooooooooo. Suspect this is going to be bony.

– Injects local anaesthetic into neck. Ow.

– Scan me again to recheck site

– Starts poking bigger needle in, which will carry the steroid juice. Weirdly not totally painful, like having a blunt Biro jabbed into you.

– Stops, and I get rescanned to see if he is in the right spot

– Am aware I am lying down in a CT scanner, with a massive needle poking out of my neck. surreal.

– Scan ends, man carries on, pushing big needle further in.

– Rescanned again to check location – doubly surreal. This feels like a newspaper cartoon with an amusing 'medical misadventures' caption, except my real human body is taking part in it

– After about 25 minutes of needling and checking, man finally delivers steroid gunk and withdraws needle.

– Ho ho ho – and then he goes again with the second one.

– Same process, except this time it needs two local anaesthetics as he seems to start off in the wrong place. Or is maybe a sadist, who knows.

– This needle goes in 5 centimetres, one by one at a very slow poky pace, to my spinal column, what a delightful thought

– And when it's done I see a cross section of my upper body for the first time – wondering what the big black circle is I learn that's what a windpipe looks like on x-ray. Well there you have it.

– I finally escape an hour later with two plasters to cover the injection sites and a hopeful promise that in 24 hours to 1 week's time I might feel less pain than currently in my neck and shoulder region.

Well, here's hoping.

It did merit a cup of tea and Toblerone chunk on arrival home so hey, small mercies?

Not much to show for it now, apart from waking up today with quite a sore neck. Back to work already though – and already got my eyes on the last bit of Lindt reindeer in the fridge as a potential afternoon perker-upper… well, something has to go my way doesn't it? 

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