PAIN

Long term physical pain can be exhausting, frightening, depressing. I know that old men and women are supposed to moan a lot about aches and pains, but I find the opposite – older people endure a lot in silence. Maybe you talk and weep with your partner. Maybe you cry on your own. Maybe you just stay quietly depressed.

Three friends – and there may be more – have bodily pain that isn’t going away any time soon. Three friends brought to their knees or their backs, their joints or their bones, by the normal process of ageing. You can’t really feel another person’s pain but you can witness its effects – drawn face, quiet voice, forced smile; an involuntary wince. They don’t want to make a fuss, and you don’t want to say anything stupid. But like a GP compelled to offer a prescription to every suffering patient, I end up ransacking my brain for advice or experience in the face of someone else’s pain, plugging in to their unspoken prayer that something’s going to make a difference. How stupid is that.

Describing it.....

Chronic pain can follow on from acute pain or be part of a disease process. It has a wearying quality to it without the healing property of sleep. It nags away, disrupting normal activity, preventing you from sleeping at night. It stops you doing something you really want to do, turns you inward. There’s nothing to cry about – it’s not like that – but you can end up feeling the distress alone. You spend time and money looking for alternatives to the drugs, not wanting addiction but not wanting the pain either. Acupuncture, osteopathy, aromatherapy, physiotherapy, Chinese medicine, chiropractic, dietician, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, reflexology, Reiki. I’ve tried most of them. I liked Shiatsu best.

It’s a while since I had a bout of severe pain myself but I do remember what it was like, not least because I kept a diary at the time: something to do when all else failed…. ‘My incapacity makes me afraid. Afraid I’ll never be OK again. I am only soothed by a qualified doctor – someone who observes my body, has seen this before, isn’t guessing. She acknowledges the pain and stays detached. She says: “Two to three months, I’m afraid.” That can’t be true – I can’t manage, I can’t do that. I can only do the next half-hour. What’s happening to me? Will this ever stop? And then the temporary relief of a strong pain-killer and I wonder if I’m making this up, making too much fuss, imagining things.’

Dealing with it....

We all have our different pain thresholds and different ways of managing pain. One friend tells me that her stoical Scottish childhood equipped her for most things, but not dependency. She sees triumph in not using a walking stick and resisting stronger pills, even though the medics have told her that pain doesn’t help the healing process. Another friend throws money at the problem – a consultation with a private physician, a session in the pool or gym, time for massages, feet rubs and osteopaths. And wine: she chooses her own anaesthesia. A third turns to the internet to learn about her condition, understand the brain’s pain receptors. She resists too many pain killers in case it fogs her brain, fearful that doctors don’t understand enough what the various drugs are doing to her.

I think there’s a little fear in all of them - that, at this age, This could be it. And it might be…. because getting older means the body breaking down in ways you can’t always predict. Pain is a signal, a warning that something’s not right and it tells you that you are fragile, vulnerable, dependent, mortal.

What helped me get through my own pain was friendship – a debt I will never be able to repay except to pay it forward. Friends turning up unexpectedly with meals or audio books, the phone chatter in my ear, a series of funny texts. Friends who took me to their house for days of comfort. Life-savers.

It's supposed to help but....

Strangely, being asked how I was feeling didn’t help - there is a paucity of words for describing pain and the question could feel like a demand for progress. No, I’m not feeling better. No, I’m not sleeping. No, there’s nothing else that can be done. Misery and failure. Just talk to me about the world out there, tell me that life exists beyond this state. Let’s watch a movie or a soap on TV, because my brain no longer functions.

Also, being asked questions that required my introspection felt like being scrutinised: why was this happening - psychologically, spiritually? What hadn’t I taken notice of? What was my body trying to tell me? Understanding the laws of body/mind/spirit interwoven meant taking responsibility for my pain. Well, yes, but not in the midst of it. Being admonished for speeding as you lie bleeding at the side of the road is not helpful.

In the end....

And so, as I watch my contemporaries cope with pain in various ways and then wonder how I will be when it comes to my own turn in the painful ageing process, I am reminded of labour - a process of diving deep into the body, letting instinct take over and finally letting go. Getting older means moving towards dying. There will be a journey of leaving my own body and, perhaps, to be glad when it’s over. Physical pain demands both a profound bodily engagement and ultimately a detachment, letting the body do what it needs to do whilst holding onto the spirit.

We will see if I am right.