About the pain of others

Iwasn’t going to write about it but here we are; I’ve been consumed by it all week and I’ve got a column due. So, sisters and brothers, let me share a little about my pain.

Maybe you don’t want to go any further down this road; that’s OK, I completely understand. I don’t really want to talk about it or share any details. On the other hand, I hate it when writers (and there were a couple at this newspaper who used to do this constantly) tease readers with hints of private traumas, the details of which they ultimately decline to divulge. (So what happened? Did your husband/father/friend/editor have an affair or steal your crack?)

So here’s what happened to me. I had minor surgery last week, by which I mean I had really big-deal surgery since it was committed on me. I had a urological procedure—cystoscopy and dilation.

If you know what that is, fine. If you don’t know and are curious, you can Google it. If you just want to take my word that it wasn’t any fun, I’d be appreciative.

It was a necessary procedure, for the previous couple of months had become increasingly uncomfortable to the point that I had almost forgotten what it was like to feel normal. As

I’m writing this—a full five days after the event—I’m feeling quite a bit better. But had you asked me yesterday, I might have told you that I thought the cure was worse than the disease.

I was probably being a baby about it.

A lot of you have to face way meaner problems every day. I had a little anxiety (and it really bothers me that although I can do my own taxes and solve quadratic equations I can’t understand a hospital bill or how my medical insurance works), but I like my doctor and all the health-care people who dealt with me. Karen did her best to keep me distracted; we had a nice low-key Thanksgiving with some good friends. I went on walks with the dogs, though a couple of times I got sent home early. I watched a few movies that I’ve been meaning to get around to. (I cannot imagine any better way to experience The Lego Batman Movie than on a bleary post-op afternoon with an affectionate Schnauzer mix snuffling in your lap.)

My pain didn’t keep me from doing anything—other than engaging with the world beyond my front door and back gate.

Maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t feel like I could focus on anything beyond the next halfhour last week. Maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about being present and in the moment. All I can say is that I’d hoped my convalescence would allow me some time to think and write a couple of columns, a chance to get ahead of the end-of-the-year rush. Right.

Now I’m so hopelessly behind that I’ll never get around to answering some of those emails I’ve been meaning to answer over the past month. (I’m experiencing the heady freedom of social bankruptcy!)

The pain was more uncomfortable and embarrassing (though why should we be embarrassed when our bodies turn against us?) than acute. At the hospital they showed me a little card with a bunch of cartoon faces. I’d put this down as somewhere between the grimacy stoic face and the queasily smiling one. Maybe a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, sometimes flicking up into the 5 range.

It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle with overthe-counter medication and moping gingerly about the house, but it was thoroughly preoccupying.

Because that’s what pain is—an unwelcome preoccupation.

It’s not, as some dubious muscle heads have it, “weakness leaving the body.” It is a symptom or measure of specific damage being wreaked in the body. (You can sustain damage without pain; there can be pain without damage.) And most of the time what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger. Often it scrapes you out and leaves you busted and sore and sad.

Pain is real, it’s different for other people, and there are a lot of factors that go into determining how we perceive and cope with it. But there aren’t any specialized pain receptors in our body, just nerves that detect changes in temperature, pressure and chemical balance. Pain is a product of the brain, which is not to say it’s all in your head. It’s just hard to quantify. Hence the cartoon faces on the laminated card.

And it’s unlikely we ever really understand the pain of others; all we can do is imagine ourselves in the place of the hurt. And most of us probably tend to overestimate our own resilience. I’ve often said I thought I had a very high tolerance for pain based on a couple of episodes—I once broke my ankle playing basketball and finished the game. I went home, had supper and went to sleep before being awakened by some sharp aching after midnight. (And had I stayed on my crutches for the duration, these days my bones might not creak and throb when the barometric pressure falls.)

Ilike to think I’m tough; I’ve had my teeth drilled without anesthetic (not recommended). And I didn’t take anything before the first probative attempt at cystoscopy. (I went into a cool black Propofol bliss when they did it for real. Things have changed a lot since I had my tonsils out and counted backward from 100. I feel like an hour or so of my life was simply deleted.)

A low buzz in my left knee every couple of years will, for a few seconds, erupt into a whitehot jag. I don’t always notice I’m limping. Sometimes my back troubles me. I’ve learned to enjoy the aching wash of lactic acid in my arms and chest.

But that’s all background static, just evidence I am alive. All of us unthinkingly cope with sensations that others might regard as pain.

All of us are limited in our understanding of what others have to put up with on a daily basis. One of the things that made my pain bearable was the expectation of its ceasing, that relief would soon arrive. Earned or not, I have a kind of faith in medicine. I can go on because I believe things will be better.

And if I didn’t believe that, I might be as susceptible as anyone who’s ever lost hope.