Category Archives: I’m rambling again

Feb 9

On Pain (Project 52, Week 7)

My headache was intolerable. It radiated to my spine, or perhaps the pain in my spine radiated to my head. There was a burning sensation in my neck, between my shoulders. I was visiting family in Juarez, Mexico and while there, I found myself often popping aspirin. Quite unusual for me. When I complained of the pain to my mom, she translated my complaint to my aunt who suggested we invite her friend to the house to crack my back. “No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. My head and back might be making me miserable, but the idea of a stranger from down the street coming in to manipulate my spine was utterly unappealing. “I’ll wait and go to a chiropractor when I get back to Florida,” I told mom.

I excused myself to go take a nap in hopes of relieving my headache. I woke up some time later to laughter and screaming from the living room. I didn’t know what they were doing–all the conversation was in Spanish–but the sounds were not enough to prompt me out of bed. A few minutes later I heard everyone enter my room. I was still half asleep, but I felt activity on my bed that caused me to crack open my eyes to see what the hell was happening. My aunt was lying prone at the end of the mattress and a woman I didn’t recognize was rubbing oil on her bare back. I closed my eyes and bitched to myself. They had invited the woman over after all. The one who cracks backs and lives right down the street. I was aggravated not only because I was woken from my nap still feeling like shit, but because now I had to figure out a polite way to repeatedly decline the opportunity to have some stranger from down the street manipulate my back. While I thought this to myself, my aunt let out a gasp as the woman pressed  down on her spine, sending out a series of snaps that sounded like someone popping gum.

I opened my eyes and lifted myself on to one arm; the women greeted me with enthusiasm, glad that I had finally joined them. I watched as my aunt adjusted her shirt and then sat in a chair that was brought to my bedroom from the kitchen. The neighbor woman massaged my aunt’s neck and toggled her head around until it moved loosely between her hands. Then she wrenched it to one side quickly and sharply, sending out snapping noises again and scaring the hell out of me. I thought her neck might break from the force. My aunt had a stunned look on her face, obviously caught off guard by the force of the twisting action. Then she burst into laughter as did the rest of us. She was able to relax enough for the woman to crack her neck again, this time in the opposite direction.

Soon they were calling for me to take my turn. I waved my hand in the air. “No, I’m okay,” I said. The neighbor lady moved on to someone else and my mom whispered to me that my family had invited her there because of me. They thought she could help me. They were paying her. She said the woman had worked on her foot and ankle when they were in the living room, and it had been incredibly painful–she was the one who had been screaming, and my cousins were the ones laughing. However, she said she felt great now. Her feet weren’t bothering her at all. “Really?” I asked. “You feel better?” My mom’s a bit of a skeptic, so for her to participate so willingly, and to recommend it so heartily, well, it helped to change my mind. And my neck and back and head were really hurting.

I agreed to have my back adjusted. When I took off my shirt and turned so that my back was facing the reflexologist (that’s what the woman had studied in school–reflexology), she made a big deal about one side of my body being lower than the other. Since she spoke only in Spanish, I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but she was pointing out various curves and knots in my back and at the base of my neck, and speaking with great emphasis. My family responded with mumbles that sounded concerned and surprised. She had me rest on the bed and proceeded to crack my back and work out a knot in my neck. I felt better afterward, but I emphatically declined having my neck cracked.

But dealing with the daily pain in Juarez helped me to come to this realization: I’m scared of chronic pain. Consciously scared of it.  As in, when I have a pain that lasts for a day, I immediately wonder if it’s going to last forever. This occurred to me this week when I started getting dull headaches and neck aches, and knew it was time to have my back adjusted again. I have the great and happy privilege to be pain free nearly every day, which is something I don’t take for granted. I think of my mom who has a pretty high level of pain in her legs every day thanks to all the chemo her body has been subjected to. I think of my dad who had incredible back pain toward the end of his life because his cancer was playing with the nerves of his lower back, creating a sensation so severe that he popped Percoset like candy and it had next to no effect on the pain. Hospice eventually created some Morphine/Oxycontin cocktail that finally  provided some relief. Knowing what they experience/experienced reminds me to be grateful. But the other thing about these two people, the two heroes of my life, is that they never showed their pain. I sat next to my father for weeks on end and he never said a word about the pain in his back. Never. Didn’t grimace, didn’t bitch, didn’t say a word about it. I run around with my mom whenever I can, and I have to remember to ask her how she’s feeling. Her legs could be blistering with pain, but she pushes through without complaint.

I’m also amazed when I read about what life was like for people prior to the invention of anesthesia and pain medication. For example, the harrowing description of the surgery Samuel Pepys went through to have bladder stones removed (bladder stones, themselves, being excruciatingly painful):

There were no anaesthetics, and alcohol was certainly not allowed to a patient undergoing surgery to the bladder. The surgeon got to work. First he inserted a thin silver instrument, the itinerarium, through the penis into the bladder to help position the stone. Then he made the incision, about three inches long and a finger’s breadth from the line running between scrotum and anus, and into the neck of the bladder, or just below it. The patient’s face was sponged as the incision was made. The stone was sought, found and grasped with pincers; the more speedily it could be got out the better. Once out, the wound was not stitched–it was thought best to let it drain and cicatrize itself–but simply washed and covered with a dressing, or even kept open at first with a small roll of soft cloth known as a tent, dipped in egg white. A plaster of egg yolk, rose vinegar and anointing oils was then applied.  —Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self by Claire Tomalin.

This description makes my hair stand on end. No anesthesia for this procedure; I can’t begin to fathom the pain, and I’m glad that we’ve progressed to the point we have today in our medical technologies.

I wonder if chronic pain is an inevitable way of life as the body ages. A woman came into the vet clinic last week and asked for help carrying in her cat’s carrier. She is a regular client of ours and had never had any problem carrying in the carrier before. I walked to the car with her and she explained that she was having some back and arm problems. She had had surgery once already and seemed to think she’d have to have it again. When her appointment was over, I wished her well and said I hoped things improved soon. She thanked me and said she was in pain pretty much all the time. “Getting old’s a bitch,” she said as she walked out the door. My dad used to say the same thing.

There is another client who comes in pretty regularly who wears a body brace to support her neck, arms, and legs. I think she has rheumatoid arthritis. Her movements are very slow and the brace looks like it would be quite cumbersome. I understand that rheumatoid arthritis is painful and I believe she’s had it for many years. Yet she is so friendly, patient, and pleasant–an upbeat spirit who seldom dwells on how she’s feeling.

And so I’m thankful for the privilege of living pain-free; I’m aware that this can change at any time, either due to changes in health or unforeseen accidents; I’m conscientious in how I treat my body in hopes of keeping it in the best shape I can for as long as I can; but, ultimately, should I find myself experiencing situations like those of the people noted in this post, I hope to find the same strength and grace. Because right now I’m spoiled, and if I have a headache/neck ache/backache that lasts longer than it should, everyone near me is going to hear me whine about it (ask my husband). And surely that’s no way to handle such things.

Nov 11

Unknowable

I wish I could be more daring in my day to day interactions with strangers–more humorous, flirtatious, outgoing, cheerful, talkative, sympathetic. I wish I met more daring strangers. I wish to be that daring stranger. There’s too much silence between me and the strangers around me. It’s not that daring, really, to just open your mouth and talk. Yet it’s so easy and comfortable to be silent. But who knows what interesting character I’m passing, or what stories I could hear from someone new while sitting next to him/her in the coffee shop?

Feb 21

On Letting Go

Today at the vet clinic I took a call from a woman who felt it was time to put her 15-year-old dog down.  She said he was whimpering, and not doing very well. I found an emergency slot for her at the end of the day, and told her to come in at that time.  She was understandably broken up over the phone, and I felt low after finishing our call. That would be our fourth euthanasia today, a lot for a Saturday, and many tears were shed by people of both genders, young and old.

She was an older woman, perhaps 70 or so, and she came at the designated time and carried the dog inside, wrapped in a towel. His face looked old, he was thin and losing hair. He looked every one of his 15 years, which translates to about 90 in human years. She was escorted to a room, and stayed with him until he was gone. Her face was wet, and her eyes were red as she emerged from the room, spoke a soft goodbye and left our office.  I waited for her to drive from the parking lot and locked the doors so we could start closing down for the day. One of the technicians came to the front and asked, “Did you see that dog?”  “Yeah, he looked pretty old,” I said.  He waved me into the examination room where the other technician was finishing up with dog. When I entered I saw the old dog had an enormous tumor on the side of his belly, about the size of a tangerine, protruding and red. He was nearly hairless, he had several smaller tumors on other parts of his body, and he looked positively emaciated. I was shocked by his physical condition; it was much more severe than I initially thought; he looked like the Crypt Keeper from Tales of the Crypt. It was abundantly clear that the woman loved this dog, but it was also clear that the dog should have been released from his suffering some time ago.

This experience made me think about attachment, and how hard it is for us to let go of those people or animals we love. According to buddhist thought, attachment is the root of suffering, and one step toward finding liberation is knowing that you cannot hold onto anything forever. That this moment, whether happy or sad, will change. Your health will change, your life will change, your physical characteristics will change. Wishing it were otherwise, or wishing things wouldn’t change only adds to our “suffering,” because that is wishing for the impossible.

But wishing for the impossible is what we do sometimes. I was not raised in any particular religious faith, but somehow, even as a child, I knew about Jesus and God. Perhaps my mom spoke to me of them–she was Catholic and though she decided to rear us without Catholic doctrine, there was still a picture of Jesus on our pantry. I distinctly remember I prayed all the time when I was a middle schooler. I prayed that my mom, dad, and grandmother would live forever, or at least until they were 100. I prayed for selfish things too, though, conveniently, I don’t recall those prayers as clearly as praying for the immortality of my family.

And even when I said those prayers as a child, I knew no one could live forever; I just wanted the family to keep going for as long as possible. That’s what I meant. And the family held up well for a long time. I got to spend 30 years with dad and grandmother, the third anniversaries of their deaths taking place this month and next.  I think I finally stopped praying to God when my father died. It seemed like such a futile act after that. I read a quote recently, and I can’t remember who was being quoted, but he had said something along the lines of, those who pray to God are usually praying that two plus two not equal four. I thought this was totally accurate. When I said all those prayers as a child, and even when I prayed for dad’s health to be restored, I was praying that two plus two not equal four.

I don’t mean to diminish the power of prayer here. I believe that positive thoughts and energy absolutely influence the world around us. I’m speaking more about the interventionist prayer, when we use it to ask that things be different than how they are. Buddhism teaches that one needs to learn to accept things as they are, because wishing for it to be otherwise only diminishes the moment you’re in. This is what I try to embrace, though I think if a health crisis were to strike my family or friends again, I’d find myself asking that two plus two not equal four.

It’s human nature, I suppose. None of us want to lose those people or animals closest to us. The idea of it makes my physically ill sometimes, but then I remember to bring myself back to the moment and be thankful for them now. Because worrying about or dwelling on the mortality of us all isn’t going to change anything.

I spent some time on Friday reading from the works of the late Michael Browning. He was one of my favorite writers from the Palm Beach Post, and he had an exquisite way with words. After his brother died unexpectedly, he wrote a story about taking in his elderly mother. This was a paragraph I meditated on for some time:

For all our later disagreements, I still pitied him, and drove home with tears in my eyes. It was difficult to go through the old family pictures and see him again as a bright, sparky little kid, wearing a cowboy hat or a football helmet or a Cub Scout uniform, grinning brightly next to a Christmas tree, or with an Easter egg basket in his hands. We all start out life so gaily, so bravely!

We do start out life so gaily, so bravely. And it’s difficult to see time measured out in black and white pictures, or by ashes in an urn. One of the last requests I remember my dad making before he died was to look through a stack of old pictures that were kept at my grandmother’s house. I found them and returned to his house with the box in my hands. He shuffled through the small prints, looking at black and white pictures of himself as a small boy, with his brother and sister, his dog, his wagon. He didn’t appear sad while looking at them. He made his way through the stack and set them aside to continue watching television. I wondered what he thought of this inventory he just took of his life as a youngster, but didn’t dare ask. He kept his thoughts to himself.

But I know when I look at those pictures now, and when I look at pictures of my own childhood, with all of the family looking happy, brave, and indestructible, it’s hard to let go.