there was a time in my life when pain had literally taken over every bit and aspect of my life. i never thought it would actually come to that, but it did. and i sincerely am glad it happened.
if you're the movie buff, then we may have something in common. there were a few movies in the past decade which i frequently dwelt into whenever i would have my pain bouts.
do you remember the saw series? yes, those were some pretty shocking films. to the average moviegoer, it would have been just blood and gore. but if you really consider the message, these movies really had two things going for them; gratitude and the value of pain.
it locks you in and there's pretty much no escape from there
so i recall myself waking up in the middle of the night more and more often because of the pain. i have experienced pain before but this was quite different.
the first time i had a laminectomy, it was in december, 2003. the pain started 3 months later after i screwed up carrying a heavy weight without the proper body mechanics. i paid for it dearly.
the pain would also be like this. it would start from my back and radiate downwards where the pulses would end just before my right knee. it was like having the blunt end of a pen being driven into your skin and going down. couple that with your back suddenly getting tight and leave you unable to move and in another type of pain which i would describe as being crushed by your own muscles. in short, it was not pretty. the surgery pretty much fixed that.
the second time though, presented differently. i never thought my condition recurred since it had a different manifestation. the first one was relieved by the fetal position. the second was relieved by nsaids. so all the while, i thought it was a different condition. but i was eventually wrong.
the nsaids would lose efficacy and rather than strain my liver over higher and higher doses of medications, it was time to surgically deal with it. the pain would start as slow cramps which would eventually consume your whole leg and hip. just so we all have the same idea on this, consider the most painful cramps you had your whole life. multiply it by 7 months with 2 or 3 hours on nsaid-relief in between. by the way, i was also doing my internship then. this meant that despite not being able to walk or stand more than 30 seconds at a time, i was still doing my 36-hours shifts.
this is a scene from the saw series. i never thought i'd say this but whatever it was she felt, my leg also had a story to tell
the good thing though was that after 3 days of finding it too difficult to take care of myself and be absent for the same period from the hospital, i decided that it was time to go home. another adventure later, it was all over. i still do have some artifacts from the surgical experience but that's gonna be a topic for another post.
if there's any good that came out after my two whole ordeals of almost dying in the operating room, it's gratitude. i have since become even more thankful of and for the life i have. the pain has also taught me to focus on the present. that's because most people have no idea how long time seems to be when you're in constant pain and still working.
i have also read some pain websites about living with pain (yes, i went up to that point) and they all provided another interesting point to their readers. they said that pain was a "reminder that we were still alive".
do i have any regret from my entire experience of being in pain for the last 7 of 9 months? not much.
but if there's anything, it would be how i discovered some people never really believed me and thought i was faking it. even when i was in pain, unable to move, sighing and grimacing.
at least now i know what kind of people they really are.
