Six glorious hours

For the first time in two long years, I was completely without pain in the middle of the day— throughout every liberated cell in my body. I could waltz and spin. I could pick up a pen from the floor, and reach for a glass of water. I could perch on the edge of a seat without any back support. I could ride in a car over a bumpy road! O joy! O frabjous day! 

This blissful state lasted for six hours. During my next appointment, I reported this to my new doctor. He was disappointed. "Only six hours?" "No, you don't understand. I want to kiss the ground you walk on."

It was a series of small injections along the piriformis muscle in my hip. "Piriformis syndrome," he scribbled in my chart. The diagnosis I had suspected for 18 months, which had been dismissed by five other physicians who had subjected me to one ineffective treatment after another.

Perhaps I am on the way to recovery.