We just came back from the doctor’s office where Carol’s hand was injected for the fourth or fifth time for the pain she has been suffering in the area of the joint at the root of her thumb. She has been living with this pain for some time and has gone to therapists to have that hand fitted with a device to alleviate the pain and allow her to lift common objects like a glass of water.
If the pain that Carol suffers were my pain I would be crying, moaning and audibly letting everyone know I was in extremis. Carol bears the pain of arthritic fingers and in her back not with stoic heroism but with calculations about the remedies that are available to her. It is our hope that this injection will eliminate or dull the pain for a little while as we plan to leave the area and our doctors to take a motor trip and then the cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean. We had to change plans when she fell and fractured her vertebrae and it is always at times before trips that something seems to go awry and plans are changed or abandoned.
Pain is interesting. I have a high threshold for pain that comes from heavy lifting and where manly sticking-it-through is required. Despite new knees and using canes to walk distances, I will get up and give someone else my seat. But this is only a minor part of what pain is to most people. Pain hurts!
When you live with pain constantly you sometimes do not think of it as pain but as what you must expect to live where you live and doing what you want to do. I don’t know how many people have next-door neighbors who are a pain and the only remedy is to shut your door and try to ignore them. That is something like the pains we have in growing older. It is the neighbor who grates on your nerves and causes you untold – well, pain. Hurting is not living as we would want to live.
No one handles pain that causes children to cry inconsolably. You cannot make it go away and that is painful to you as well. Pain from accidents and pain from operations that are taken care of eventually fade away. I wish I could handle it as well as Carol does. She is a really good example for the rest of us for she does NOT do as I do. She does not moan and groan and complain constantly as some who are caught in age and debility. They will not get better but they make everyone around them share that pain. Not everyone can be like Carol but the world would be better for others to adopt her attitude which is, how can I help to make the pain less or make it go away? What are my options?
The sun will come out tomorrow and tomorrow the pain may go away. Carol says she learned to handle pain from her mother. I could always get attention from my mother by moaning and groaning and I am terrified of needles.