Pain Brain

For the last 3 months I have been in excruciating pain. It started one night when I woke up and my right leg hurt so much I could not walk. A trip to the emergency room unearthed nothing. The first orthopedic surgeon ordered an MRI at my insistence to determine what was going on. I was put off by his ageist, non-directive manner so I sought a second opinion.

The second orthopedic surgeon essentially told me there was nothing he could do. I understand now that in the orthopedic world that is code for “I can only do surgery to help you and I don’t think you are ready to hear that”. The discouragement when I went home after seeing him was difficult to bear.

The next fiasco was trying to get painkillers. A miscommunication with my PCD led to six weeks going without them. During this time my pain level was relentless and I was unable to concentrate, sleep or think. When my doctor and I finally sorted the situation out, I finally got painkillers. This helped about 50%. I was still in a lot of pain but the painkillers took the edge off.

A rheumatologist finally went over my MRI with a radiologist and told me my knee was very bad. A standing ex-ray had never been taken and needed to be to confirm the bad condition my knee was in. Her advice was to call the 2nd surgeon and make an appointment for surgery.

I tried this and the ball began rolling. The next day I was in his office with his assistant looking at bone-on-bone on a standing ex-ray. It was confirmed that a total knee replacement was appropriate for the date I had set.

Never have I been in so much pain for so long a time. Pain is an interesting teacher. It is relentless. It takes the upper hand and will not let you keep up with it. Trying to stay ahead of pain is all but impossible and once it has won its domination it stays triumphant.

Pain brain is an interesting phenomenon. There is no logic to it. There is only physical, mental, emotional and spiritual pain. The different types of pain occupy the brain in varying ways. Sometimes only one aspect is active. At other times they can all fire off at the same time. This amount of pain is totally challenging and is something that can rarely be tolerated.

I tried everything to cope. Breathing helped temporarily. I was unable to concentrate so reading, creating, and all of my usual life was out of reach. My body hurt too much. Mental and emotional pain could be temporarily relieved for a few moments with meditation. Spiritually I was losing ground and I could feel my life force slipping away. I was depressed.

Depression is a familiar old friend. I have been dealing with it for years—but never in this way. The longer the pain went on the more I could barely hang on. I found the despair unbearable and felt it was going to be never-ending. I clung on to my sanity by my fingernails and tried as best I could to keep going. The life activities that had fed my soul and given me a tremendous vitality were gone. I felt as though I had abandoned myself and had been abandoned but had no energy to do anything about it.

What does Pain Brain feel like? There is an overlay of the feeling of being overwhelmed by physical pain. There is a strong sense of hopelessness and an ever-growing doubt that things will ever change. There is no vitality or life force and it takes all your energy just to walk across the room. Concentration is impossible. This makes reading, playing and writing music, doing anything creative, communication with others and thinking in general impossible. Pain Brain is all consuming, relentless and will not give up its domination. Doing anything takes all your energy and requires rest. Sleep is sporadic and challenging.

I feel as though I have missed the summer, a time when activities outside bring me so much fun and pleasure.  All of my energy has gone into the losing battle with my Pain Brain. I have lost. Over and over again I have watched myself dip deeper and deeper into oblivion.

I welcome the pain of having surgery because I know with that there is an end in sight. I feel edgy and on have no tolerance for the thought of more pain. I sense this in my everyday life. For instance, I will wait several days to go down the hall to get the mail, think hard about if I want to walk across the room to get something, welcome sleep when it comes and have given up on reading entirely. I need this to change.

I have a new respect and appreciation for people who live with debilitating pain all the time. I simply don’t know how they do it and realize now that Pain Brain’s domination fills many lives everyday. I do not know how they survive?

My surgery is coming up the last day of July. There is an end in sight. I will not have won the battle with Pain Brain but hopefully getting my life back will put it away for a very long time. I am not grateful for the pain. Perhaps I will never be. I feel as though I have learned nothing—other than I do not have any power when pain grips me so strongly. I have been cranky and whiney and feel betrayed by my body aging. I am hoping to regain some positive insight when this is all over. I’ll let you know.