When I was much younger and still living with my mom, I remember a couple occasions when she woke up in the morning weeping from being in excruciating pain. She had slept wrong somehow and acquired a pinched nerve. There was a very medieval type of equipment my mom used to get relief from the pain of this problem. A neck brace, a hook and pulley, and a bag full of water were used to lift her head off her shoulders.

For the last week, I have suffered a very similar pain. I have a bulged disk in my back that is pinching a nerve. My right arm hurts unbelievably badly, and fingers are slightly numb. I started with some medicine to try to solve the problem, but I didn’t respond to the medicine the way my doctor had hoped. So, Thursday, I had shots administered into my back to try to solve the problem. At this moment, I’m still in a lot of pain, but I think it is getting better.