Pain: My least favorite teacher

Pain: My least favorite teacher

by Robert C. Koehler

564 words

Can I turn pain into wisdom? I suppose that’s what I’m trying to do right now, as I sit with a notebook on my lap. I’m not feeling optimistic that I’ll succeed.

One of the inconveniences in my life these days is called gout, a condition – in my right knee – that absolutely lives up to the negativity of its name. Ongoing ouch. Careful, careful. I’ve had it on and off for a couple of years now, and recently it started getting worse. Indeed, getting around with the help of a cane – whom I had named Citizen Cane – no longer felt sufficiently safe. I started using a walker.

Citizen Cane, meet Klunky Walker!

I also wound up getting a cortisone shot in the knee, which had significantly eased the pain in the past. But this time, oh my God, that’s not what happened. This time my initial reaction was something the doctor called “transient steroid flare” – the pain, rather than easing up, increased with a unique intensity, unlike anything I could ever remember experiencing.

Whenever I bent my knee, yikes, all the lights went out in Georgia, or something like that. I quivered and lurched and cried out in pain like a two-year-old . . . “ow-w-w-w-w!” . . . before calming down and plunking myself back on the couch or on the bed. In essence, I couldn’t move. The pain ebbed when I returned to my stationary position – but that’s all I could do. I had entered the world of total dysfunctionality. That’s why I didn’t write a column last week. Sitting in a chair, at a desk, in front of my computer, felt no more doable than climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Here at the retirement community where I now live, I had to switch from independent living to temporary assisted living – ouch, indeed. Meals were brought to my apartment. And should the inevitable happen – I needed to use the bathroom – I would press the button on the pendant I wore around my neck and someone would show up a few minutes later. She’d pull Klunky Walker over to the bed or couch and I’d grip the handles, then . . . uhhh . . . uhhh . . . stand directly into the burst of pain. I’d calm myself as best I could, calm myself some more, then oh so slowly hobble to the bathroom with the helper at my side, her hand on my shoulder.

Then, after doing what I must, I’d hobble back, sit down and plunge into emotional emptiness. This was the entirety of my day. This scenario lasted for three or maybe four days. Eventually, the steroid flare started to ebb and, wow, I could sit at my desk again. I could do stuff again. The gout is still there, of course. I still use the walker to get around and hardly trust my physical situation.

What comes next? Who knows? Am I suddenly appreciative of my ability to walk again, my ability to function? I’d like to cry yes, but I don’t really think so – certainly not appreciative enough. Maybe, as I return to my prior life – as I return to absorbing the news of the day, as I gape at the hell we inflict on one another – I can at least note with intensified wonder how lucky I have it compared to someone living in a war zone.

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Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, and his album of recorded poetry and artwork, Soul Fragments.