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Pain oh how relative it is and thankfully we can not recall the actual feelings. I can relate to many on the experiences they went through. Honestly though I do not think many know true pain, the type of pain that greets you in the morning and tucks you in at night, the kind of pain that never stops and never goes away.
Anything less is simply an injury to me. Yes they hurt but they could and would never measure up to what pain really can be. People touched on heart ache, possibly a loss of a loved one yet even those deminish over the months and years, but they are on the right track.
Starting with a few select injuries then I will move into real pain.
Mowing the lawn as a kid and the blade shot a piece of bailing wire over straight through my leg and bone. It was just sticking out of both sides. That was fairly mild in my mind.
Shortly before I turned twelve I got my first real taste of what some may consider pain. It started with a slight pens and needles feeling in my lower back which lasted a day before I went to the doctors. They looked me over and sent me home that friday night. That lasted a week before I went in for the spinal tap which is where the stick a needle into your spinal cord without pain medication and suck out some of the fluid. Then I was sent back home for the weekend. That night the horror began. The feelings I felt I can not put to words as there is none to acuratly describe the sensation. It was constant, unrelenting and all I could do is scream until I passed out only to be awoke by my own screaming. I could feel everything and I do mean everything. If someone raised their voice the pain would increase, if something moved near me and I felt the slightest vibration it would increase. I was rushed to the hospital that night when my parents had gotten home from work as I could not call them because I could not make it to the phone. The 35+ mile trip to the ER was in an old jeep of all things down bumpy roads, with every tiny bump an explosion of nothing less than the feeling of molten lead would be felt in every vien in my body. This all turned out to be the sensation one goes through as your spinal cord is being choked off its blood supply. These feelings went on for over 5 days two of which I had blacked out into a self enduced pain coma.
How I long for those feelings now. Sure having been either sitting or laying down now for the last 20 years does cause some mild discomfort in your back, muscle spazms day in day out are a nuisence at best and sure dealing with catherterizations for years several times a day may be a tad uncomfortable. The real deffinition of pain never really visited me until awhile latter.
Real pain is in daily reminders. Real pain is trying to recall what grass felt like under your feet, real pain is watching others do the simplest things and not enjoying them while you try to prevent your insides from festering over and winning the emotional war that your body is the battlegrounds for.
I look back now on those memories of what I thought were pain. What I would not do nor give to even live another day of those 5 days in the hospital again just to savor the feelings from then because although painful feelings they were feelings I will never have again.
Enjoy those simple things people, and yes even savor those painful moments. It could be worse, trust me.
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