Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

1Back PainJames was at work when it set in, a hot line running from the base of his skull down the leftside of his neck, then left around the bottom of his scapula. He tested it by rolling his head,lifting his shoulder and dropping it, and it only worsened.That night he took Advil and wore an ice bag while he watched T.V. The ice made itsubside, but when the numbness wore off it was the same as before.The next day at work it was there again, and by noon it had already grown old and frayed.He tried adjusting the height of his chair and keyboard tray.After a week his girlfriend Megan convinced him to try an acupuncturist. He didn't believein it, but she'd found a training school that charged $20 a session.The acupuncture trainee looked at his tongue ("dusky," he said) and felt his pulse("slippery"), bent James's neck back and forth and rubbed his shoulders, and then had him takeoff his shirt and lie face-down. "Good points," the trainee said of his back, and even thoughJames didn't know what that meant he was flattered.His shoulder and arm tingled when the needles came out, but his neck and back hurt thesame. The trainee said he should start feeling better within three days, and that if he didn't he

Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

2should go see a real doctor. Although he didn't say "real doctor," he said "internist."When he went home James made fun of the trainee to Megan, and she laughed even thoughit'd been her idea. He liked that about her.James didn't have an internist, he had an HMO, so that's where he went after three days. TheHMO doctor told him to use ice and Advil and to reconfigure his workspace. James said he'dtried all that."How'd it happen, then?" the doctor said.James said it had happened in his chair at work."Describe it to me exactly," the doctor said.James tried. In fact, he was nearly florid. He talked about a "snake" wrapping its tail aroundhis shoulder blade. But he could sense that all the same there was something missing from hisdescription.The doctor produced a card with the numbers 1 through 10 printed on it in a line, and askedJames to point to the one corresponding to his level of pain. James put his finger on the "7",although 7 didn't necessarily seem righter than 6 to him, or 8.The doctor told James he'd probably pulled something, and gave him a prescription formuscle relaxants, carisoprodol with aspirin—brand name Soma. They knocked him out and didnothing for him when he could manage to stay awake. His concentration at work was alreadybad because every thought had to shout over the constant static of his pain, and adding the drone

Joshua Malbin307 12

St. Apt 8Brooklyn NY 11215

3of narcotics made him downright stupid.If it was a muscle strain, the doctor had said, he should start to feel better in another twoweeks. So when those two weeks elapsed James went back, and the doctor sent him to get anMRI. He lay in the tube for half an hour and listened to a CD of the most insipid bits of Beethoven.The MRI showed nothing. The doctor looked perplexed and asked James to describe hispain again, and James tried to answer novelly. Maybe it was his fault the doctor couldn't figureout what was wrong. Maybe he'd be healed if he were able to describe things better.The doctor said that since there was nothing mechanically wrong with him the problemmight be in his brain, so he sent James to a pain specialist.The pain specialist said that maybe James had had an injury at the start, and somehow hisbrain hadn't gotten the message that he'd healed. He sent James to get a CT scan. James lay withhis head in the halo for an hour and listened to a CD of the most insipid parts of Mozart.The CT showed nothing, but the pain specialist decided to try James on an anti-seizure druganyway, gabapentin. It made him dull and witless, and neither helped him sleep nor helped hisback.He stopped taking them and instead ordered more Soma over the Internet. Every morning he