[Kitsa]

The actual needle-in-the-spine part is probably not what you might imagine it to be. The sensation of something in that intervertebral space is just a sensation of something feeling very, very wrong. Something you'd be protecting yourself against if you had a chance, on an instinctive level. I had a spinal procedure go bad last year and one of my nerve roots got skewered...pretty much lost the use of my right leg that entire summer. I am in a very bad place with spinal needles right now and had to have heavy IV sedation before I even got near a spinal block for a surgery this past June.

They might do some sort of backwash thing, I'm not sure. I've never heard of it being done to me. The headache seems to be a hit or miss thing. I know that I've had extra stuff in my cerebrospinal fluid, various anesthetics and some myelogram dye that's still stuck in there, but it never benefited me any.

And the suction tubing I actually ended up being thankful for. They were experimenting with a biopsy, never did it before (this was a major big-city teaching hospital with a stellar reputation) and were literally just making stabs through my tongue with a needle that was about 4" long. They ended up stabbing through to my throat and, as I mentioned before, I choked on my own blood. So I guess it was good the suction was there, although it was terrifying and painful and I was shaking so badly I couldn't walk out of my own accord.