today wasn't the normal pain without much progress day.



i finally got the protein bars (thanks to erik and wendy). so now i'm able to eat without having to walk to the kitchen and prepare something.



then afterwards, i went to get the mri done. the mri was pretty much what imagined it to be. i knew the hole they put you in was small, but damn, its much more cramped in there than i imagined. basically it will wake the inner clausterphobia in you. for you minor clausterphobics, you might experience this once and hope you'll never have to do it again. for you moderately and majorly clausterphobics, i hope they are willing to sedate you cause its not for you. laying in there for 30 minutes, i was wondering how they are able to get so many people in there without problems. luckily i wasn't clausterphobic....but it still made me a little uncomfortable being in there. imagine having about 6 inches above your head in a solid chamber and not having the luxury of moving your head to look...or any part of the body for that matter. good thing i was drowsy with about 2 hours of sleep from the night before. maybe if i had a little caffine in me, it would have been a different story.



jafterwards, i went to go see the acupuncturist that i first went to when i was initially injured. and i realized that the place that my parents took me to was a total rip off. the doctor was an idiot. an experience bullshitter at that. basically, the acupuncturist would feel around to find your sore spots. a gift that my acupuncutrist has in spades. but the place my parents took me to...the doctor would say...."any pain here?" and just keep digging his fingers harder into your skin after you say..."no...no....no....yes!" a total fraud. this guy shouldn't be in business. i feel bad for the patients that go to him. they don't know what they are missing. he also reuses needles. i'm sure they are properly cleaned, but the acupuncturist here uses disposable ones. and after a second visit with the one here, i have a lot of confidence in acupuncture. and if done correctly, you can really benefit from it. my wrist for example. i injured both my wrist doing freeweight preacher curls...the left one finally healed after about 3 months or so. the right one is still in bad shape. but this tells you that its something that the body can heal on its own, but for some reason or another, my right wrist hasn't had the same luck. so acupuncture will definitely help in this case. sticking needles in there will make the body think that i injured that area, and that the repair process will be stimuated. pretty simple concept, but is there an alternative? surgery is overkill. and obviously i can't put my wrist in a cast for half a year for minor wrist pain that only is felt when i'm lifting moderately heavy objects. so along with my back, i'm also going to ask her to put some needles in my wrist. i have been worrying about my wrist too, but after it clicked that my wrist can be easily fixed with acupuncture, it was a load off my mind.



i came home and passed out after an exhuasting day out. the doctor should receive the mri results in 24-48 business hours. i'm hoping he can write a letter so that i can work from home without prolonging or further causing the injury. my parents called me today, and he said he found an acupuncturist in korea town that guarentees that he's able to "fix" the problem. and my dad wants to take me there. i am quite satisfied with the acupuncturist here and have high hopes on what she'll be able to accomplish. not that my parents are racist...but when i told them that the acupuncturist was not of asian descent, they were really mad at me asking how in the world i go to non asian acupuncturist...considering it is a method that was invented by the chinese..... well (A), the doctor that they took me to was korean, and he was a very expereinced acupucturist, but a total fraud. (B), i've had exceptional results with this one before, (C), being asian has nothing to with being a good acupuncturist. the one i go to studies the art, goes to conferences every year to fine tune her abilities. the one in gardena probably has never been to a conference in his life, and just got into the business by learning how to stick needles into people from maybe one person. now who do you think would be a better person to go to? i also believe that koreans...especially people like my dad, over simplify everything that he does. like if he wants to start a business, he'll have it rolling in no time. great compared to people that have ideas but never do anything about it. research on how to run that business well is never done, and he learns as he goes. so what you are left with is a business developed without any talent involved. you can say this about a lot of the korean stores. no heart or soul can be found there. why does the place exist? out of convienience of the business owner and the customers. not because it was a dream of the person who built it. koreans are known to operate lot of small stores. you'll find a lot of them, but the percentage of good ones to all the korean stores out there is below average. not that there aren't good korean stores out there with talented business owners and workers. good luck finding them because remember they are all business men/women. the person they refer will more likely be a friend's business they want to help out. its just part of the culture.



i expect to be walking a lot better, maybe even perfectly straight by monday if i'm lucky.