Perspectives on Pain…

Sadly I have a number of friends who are at this time experiencing various ailments causing considerable physical pain and discomfort. Invariably a few times a week I’m asked how I manage to keep a smile on my face given the considerable bone and cardiac pain.

I’m often told by visitors that I’m good at covering it up. Mind you, they’re usually not around when the pain is at its worst in the wee hours of the night. It’s at those times I’m found as curled up as my stiffened body will allow, and permit myself occasionally to let the tears silently stream down my face. Not terribly desirable, I’m then stuck with a wet pillow.

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with the woman who used to be my family doctor in Toronto, whom since moving away I’ve been blessed to call my friend. She was my physician back in 1996 when a mysterious virus hit me.

It wasn’t so much pain as severe discomfort. Endless months of intense nausea, vertigo and retching made daily life unbearable. It was next to impossible to keep anything down (although the Ovaltine biscuits that my father-in-law would bring me seemed to often magically do the trick when a touch of appetite would finally arrive around 3 am each night).

I was beyond miserable. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t care for my daughter properly. Even turning over in bed seemed an ominous proposition. There were too many trips to emergency as my body repeatedly went into severe dehydration.

My doctor had given me her home phone number, I remember calling her one Saturday afternoon as I reached my breaking point after over six months of this torment.

She gently assured me that despite numerous tests not having yet determined a cause, this would end – she would keep trying to find an answer. It would be okay. Admitting how much I was struggling had brought me to my low point, hearing her caring words brought me back up again.

In case you’re wondering, it’s impossible to know if that rough patch was a precursor to my diagnosis of Erdheim Chester Disease. It was however yet another of many prolonged spells of ill health, with the most serious yet still to come. I sometimes wonder what surprises the pathologist will come upon when it’s time to take a look inside. Wish I could be around to hear the results, they might explain quite a lot!

When my friend and I had our conversation a few weeks ago, I reflected upon how I had handled my illness at that time compared to how I was dealing with my current situation. Mentally, I’ve dealt with each quite differently.

When I’ve been seriously ill in the past, attached to it was always a desperation to get better. The discomfort had to eventually let up, right? Something had to work, and eventually something would.

This time, it’s completely different. With no expectation of getting better (and a reasonable assumption that with each day, week and month I’ll be feeling worse) at the risk of sounding cliché, I can embrace the pain. It’s part of me now, and there will only be one way to escape it. There’s a comfort in knowing that eventually this will be over, just not in the way I’d hoped with previous health challenges.

I don’t have to fear that tomorrow the pain might be worse, I already know that there’s a fair chance that it will be. I don’t have to worry that this illness will kill me, I already know that it will.

To my friends who are going through illness and injury, please don’t shy away from telling me how bad you’re feeling in concern that it pales in comparison to what I’m going through. Neither of us can know that, but be assured that I can understand how overwhelming it can be.

If what you need is for me to just listen, I will. If what you need is to hear that it’ll all be okay, I can say that to you. Sometimes, even though sometimes that might be straying from the truth or from what can be known for certain, those words can be golden in their intention alone.