Pain: I’ve Had a Taste

Last Sunday I wrote a post about “Enduring to the End.” Mostly an upbeat piece, taking an attitudinal approach that we shouldn’t think of it a dreary concept, but as an adventure. The comments were mostly positive, and I was moving on to something else, when I noticed a comment:

“What if ‘Enduring to the End’ really means enduring?

A really good question, which has caused me a lot of thought. Before I get into it, I want to tell you an experience that I had some years ago that helped me understand a little bit of what it feels like to endure. In my case, it was chronic pain that I had to endure.

Do you ever get the sense that God gives you experiences for the sole purpose of helping you gain empathy? I know for me, this experience was just that – although I didn’t realize it at the time.

When I was a younger man, a gang of friends and I used to play basketball at 5:00am M-W-F at the meetinghouse. We showed up one Monday morning, and the carpet runners were still in place from the previous day’s Stake Conference. We got busy rolling them up and pushing them into their storage closet. After I stood up, my back hurt. I played ball as usual, but something felt wrong.

It got worse and worse over the next couple days, and by the time Thursday rolled around, I ended up spending Thanksgiving dinner standing behind my chair – because I couldn’t sit down.

I couldn’t lie down. At all.

The next week I went to the doctor to find out what was wrong. He had no idea, and sent me home with a prescription for Vicodin, and physical therapy. Stretching, exercising and treatments didn’t help. I couldn’t sit in my chair to work. I couldn’t lie in my bed to sleep. I was feeling pain down my legs, and the start of numbness in my feet.

And that is when I got hooked on Vicodin. Two pills could put me out long enough to get a couple hours of sleep – but that was it. I walked around in a stupor that resulted from sleep-deprivation and drugs. I was hurting. I vividly remember sitting at attention in a hard backed chair from 2-6 in the morning, watching SportsCenter over, and over, and over again, because I couldn’t sleep, but was too out-of-it to do anything else.

My work began to suffer, my relationships began to suffer, and I didn’t feel like “me” anymore.

I went back to the doctor, and eventually got an MRI that clearly showed what my problem was: Congenital Spinal Stenoisis – which basically means that my spinal canal was to small for my spinal cord, which resulted in the nerves running down my legs being pinched off.

Even more frustrating was that the doctor said it wasn’t an injury – I was just born that way, and it merely took 30+ years to set it off. Then he gave me the bad news:

1) I would just have to learn to live with it, because there was really nothing that could be done.

2) I should never pick up anything that weighed more than 20lbs. Forever.

Right. I was a young father with three kids, and he’s telling me I can’t pick them up?

The inability to sleep, and the chronic nature of the pain started messing with my mind. I found myself in a world of pain, fog and depression that I had never experienced before – and there was nothing I could do about it. Well, except some occasional relief from opiates.

I thought that was how my life was going to be from that point on. And it was…

—for three months.

Eventually I was able to see a specialist who was a bit of a spinal guru here in Arizona. After our visit, he stunned me by telling me that he might be able to fix it. – Sign me up!- All it would require was a complex surgery where he would open my back up, detach all the muscles, take out the back side of three of my vertebrae, and then hook it all back together. After that, the spinal cord might decompress, and I might regain what had been lost, and lose the pain. (I’m sure lots of you have heard of it, or had it – a three-level spinal laminectomy.)

I was thrilled. I was in such a hurry to get it done, I talked him into doing it on President’s Day. Just the possibility of relief – and the fact that even the Vicodin was failing me – gave me some hope.

It worked. I knew as soon as I woke up from surgery that it was different. Eventually, I was able to resume my normal activities, no matter how physically demanding, except I was told that there was one thing I should never, ever do: Play golf. (Something about the twisting of the spine, yada-yada-yada.)

I could wrestle with my kids, and pick them up. Such seemingly simple things.

Now, years later, the only things remaining from that three-month trial are a wicked twelve-inch long scar on my back, an occasional dull pain in my left ankle…

…and endless empathy for people who suffer chronic pain.

I get it.

I got just a little taste, and it was enough. I got a taste of pain, a taste of addiction, a taste of depression and a taste of lost hope. Even though I was fortunate enough to only have to endure it for a short period of time, it helped me understand what others close to me might be feeling. It also helps me comprehend what some people endure, and how their hope can fade.

A few short years after my recovery, my EC was in a freak accident where she was horribly injured. She had serious pain complications from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) that still haunt her today. (I’ll save that story for another day.)

My mother lived the last part of her life with osteoporosis that was so severe that you could break her ribs if you hugged her too tightly. She grappled with severe pain every day of her life in her later years.

Without my small taste of the anguish of chronic pain, I don’t think I would have reacted the same way to the most important women in my life. I would have been quicker to judge, quicker to criticize, more impatient, and sadly, probably less supportive of them as they fought their personal battles.

My brief battle with chronic pain and drug addiction was one of the greatest gifts I have received.

 

Now, about enduring to the end for those of you who wrestle chronic pain, illness or heartbreak – I don’t have answers for you. But I do know this: I have sympathy, empathy and a great deal of love for you as you wrestle with these monsters. I understand how it can mess with your mind, and mess with your spirit. I understand how it can steal hope. I feel for you, and I mourn with you.

Again, I don’t have the answers…but I know people that do.

Here are some articles and talks that I have found that speak to this hardship. Much of it has to do with faith, as manifested by perspective.

“The Atonement Covers All Pain,” Elder Kent F. Richards, 2011

“Living With Chronic Illness.” Ensign, 1991

“Coping With Chronic Illness,” Ensign, 2002

“Faith is the Answer,” Elder David E. Sorenson, 2005

“Your Sorrow Shall Be Turned to Joy,” Elder Robert E. Hales, 1983

and so many more.

 

A constant idea that figures into enduring hardship is that of service. Allow me to end with a quick story.

One time my mother was hospitalized from complications from her osteoporosis. When she was discharged, we figured we ought to go over to her home and visit her and take her a treat.

When we got there, nobody was home – it turned out that she was gone – taking dinner to a sick family in the ward.

And she was happy to do it.