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I visited the doctor on Friday, and after his office took an hour and a half to verify that my PPO would pay for the visit, I spent a few minutes talking to him, and he gave me some prescriptions for drugs that will help with my back pain. Though I've had back pain for many years, I've largely given up on doctors being able to help; their response is invariably some temporary solution designed, presumably, to make me go away.

The new guy seems genuinely concerned, however, and I'm looking forward to his ideas on prognosis and treatment in the future. For now, I'm taking two Naprosyn (super-strength Naproxen/Aleve) and one Flexeril (muscle relaxer, Cyclobenzaprin) a day.
The human kidney. Image courtesy NIDAThey're working nicely, except I'd rather the Flexeril would last longer. My back and shoulders are tense again, and I took my last one about 12 hours ago.

In medical news not directly related to my health and physiology, I have spent the past hour or so studying the kidneys of humans and other animals. I'm trying to figure out a good location for ingress and egress of nanobots for my artificial white blood cell research.

So far, it looks like the exterior part of the kidney (the renal capsule and renal cortex) is a pretty thick (dense, I should say) media and is, therefore, an unfavorable passage for nanobots. That leaves me with all those tubes and stuff that come out of the inside. In the image to the right, you can see the renal artery and the renal vein highlighted in red and blue, respectively. That is probably the best place for nanobots to use as a door to the kidney, since they are likely to already be in the blood stream, anyway. Failing that, the only other real option is the ureter, the beige-colored tube hanging down in the image. As far as I know, that's a one-way passage, though, so swimming up it would be difficult for a tiny nanobot.

Now, I need to figure out what goes on with the artery and vein. Back to the books!