Conquering Pain

“What’s wrong?”  My back hurts, my hip hurts, my knees hurt.”  “Aren’t they supposed to hurt?”  “What?"  "No!”  “You are older now.”  “Yeah, but aging shouldn’t mean pain?” “Aging is Pain."

To be "60 is The New 40", it is absolutely essential that we overcome the debilitating effects of Pain.  Pain is the silent reminder that we have lived for a long time, because not a day goes by when something on my body, or your body doesn’t hurt.  Day or night, many of us suffer, often in silence, from chronic pain somewhere on our bodies, and it can be totally deflating.  Fun or the idea of doing something fun, brings with it this little reminder.  What began as fun can become as annoying as a pebble in a shoe or as insufferable as the numbing sting of nerve pain.  When we were younger, we could directly associate pain with something that we had done to create it.  Not anymore.  Now, it just hurts, and It's terribly confounding that our body’s central nervous system can accurately identify pain with stunning regularity.  But like a car alarm blaring in an empty parking lot, our bodies won't turn these pain receptors off.  This fragile time in our lives poignantly reflects one very unique, and universal aspect of the journey that we have undertaken just to get here.  We brought a guest, Pain.  This nightmarish problem will not be cured with ectopic creams or lotions, or pills that numb the sensation.  Trust me, I have tried them all.  There is no cure, just a resolve to fight if, or find a workable solution.

The body counters the use of pills, and other medications by just increasing and intensifying the regularity of the Pain.  We counter the body's resistance with increased intake of medication, to a point of possible addiction.  it's like a chess match.  Surgery is, well surgery and the logic of surgery is in itself, contradictory. You have an operation on the thing that is creating the pain, but to cure the problem, we must go through the pain of surgery?   Then we have to recover from surgery, only then to enter into rehabilitation; to discover, what was it all for?   Because after a few weeks, a few months, and a few years later, guess who’s back?  Yes, the Pain is back. Because Pain is like a stray cat; one day out all your best intentions you started feeding this stray cat, and no it’s not your cat, but it is now your problem.  Kittens? This may be challenging, but if you can think back to your earliest memory of falling down.  It's pivotal as wasn't falling down isn't as significant in our lives as, getting back up with or without assistance.  The very moment we dust ourselves off and got back up again, was when we started feeding this stray cat named Pain.  At first it was little bites, just appetizers.  A few little accidents, here and there.  Then as we discovered the importance of getting up after a fall, and falling down was less feared, unbeknownst to most of us was that a major portion of our confidence was being managed by Pain.  Or better our resiliency.  Pain was there during those early days, sometimes it would show itself, and sometimes it hardly registered, because thankfully there always seemed to be a good cure to be found; a band aid or antibiotic ointment administered by loving hands.  Then one day without invitation, Pain abruptly decides to make an extended appearance.  Like a stalker, it literally waited 60 years to make a full-time permanent appearance.  

I'd like to acknowledge that there is absolutely no scientific proof whatsoever that would remotely infer that Pain can think.  I only presented this anecdotally.  I fully understand any and all apprehension regarding such an absurd idea; as if Pain could think, reason?   However, I do rationalize that our bodies, in particular our joints, are extremely susceptible to fluid buildup or effusion, which causes stiffness and swelling, and I can personally attest that it’s painful.  The comedic irony is, these very joints have been using this fluid since we were children, and it allowed for growth and flexibility.  Now that we have succeeded beyond even our most imaginative years to finally begin to enjoy some of the most tasteful and well-earned fruits of our labor and here we are again fighting, fighting against something.  Fighting to overcome something.  Pain is often very cruel, and the hands and fingers are a sore point as we get older. How is it that, the part of our body that we use the most, that represents a significant reason why we are at the very top of the food chain, can be so compromised and attacked by Pain, and for no reason?  The role that our hands, and fingers play is vital to our health and wellbeing, especially since our journey is really only now getting started.  If we are unable to overcome Pain, we will never be able to work, to create, or to hold tightly someone we love.  It is essential that we overcome Pain.  

So insidious is Pain that the simplest of routines, such as cutting the grass, can suddenly become an ordeal.   I, like many of you, suffer at times from the occasional occurrence of a non-requested movement.   Some of the symptoms is a spontaneous loosening of my grip, or a slight tremor, and sometimes without having done anything my fingers, because of excess fluid with swell.  The terrible fact is that mentally we are not signaling for our hands to lose grip, or feet to suddenly ache.   It’s frustrating, and painfully worse is attempting to track the source of this physical pain, in order  administer some kind of localized remedy, it's nearly impossible . Just following a nerve signal does not always lead to the source, or the origin of the Pain.  It's a lot more complicated than that.  Pain can be emotionally gripping too.  I am aware that it seems as if I am rambling on about a subject matter that we all experience.  But for us, The New Millennials, 60 years and counting, how many more battles do we have to fight, especially internally?  In the services section of the Website, you will find specialist who provide expert treatment in the relief of Pain, using exercises and holistic science.

Men and Women endure very different elements and levels of Pain because of aging, and our threshold levels differ significantly.  I was once, like many others, easily influenced to think and quietly murmur, that "She" was just having a bad day.  That moody and hypersensitive behavior was just dismissed as if it were just, the way women are.  Behind (men) our ignorance was a truth that is more than I, or we can imagine or comprehend.  One of the cruelest twist and ironies of Pain is Menopause.  Quite possibly one of the weirdest words in the English language, because it has nothing to do with men!  For many of my readers of my Blog, you might see some parallels in this next article that might explain a chapter or chapters in your life as well.  

For me the irony began when I was 13 years old.  The most important person in my life, my mother, started to change.  It began almost imperceptivity, then later on more notably, my mom wasn't acting like mom.  It wasn't something that she did that was dramatic or destructive, just little things.  As parents we know, or we should know, that our children watch us, they see everything we do, they hear everything we say, even subtleties.  I watched as a child too.  It was about this time too that our relationship went through a divisive shift.  She and I became a little more adversarial, more inflammatory towards one another, like two Goldfish in a bowl; we didn't seem to swim together anymore.  It wasn't a lack of respect, not from me, after all this was my Mom.  It was our unspoken communication became strained and monotone.  I recognize that testosterone was fueling a lot of my behavior.  My mother is only 5 feet 3 inches and I was already by then, nearly 5 feet 9 and my voice was going through some variations.  But this new version of my mother wasn’t the mother I had known when I was younger.  The mom who would go into the backyard to teach me how to play basketball or let me lick the bowl after making a cake, or the mother who taught me how to dance, and she could dance!  Yes, Sunday dinners were still incredible, whether we had company or not.  This new version of my mother still smoked cigarettes, only more, and often than I had ever seen her smoke before.  Literally, before she would put a cigarette out, she would use it to light another. The bathroom window would often resemble a chimney, with billows of white smoke.  One minute she would be short of temper, and impatience and then seemingly one minute later, she would be effusive and fun to be around.  Mentally and emotionally, I felt as if I was a pinball, bouncing off of one bumper after another.  Learning how to read her signs was becoming dizzying.  More often than not, I would think to myself; should I ask, or should I just avoid asking?   My mother slept more too, which I now regrettably have to admit I didn’t mind.  Because I used my mother's internal pain as the perfect catalyst for much of my teenage mischief.  This is a very difficult admission.   Unfortunately, during this period as our relationship floundered and fractured and I, as with many children, blamed her.  I selfishly determined that Mom was the reason I got in trouble, because she wasn't there to stop me.  Mom wasn't at my football game, and that's why I didn't have a great game.  Mom became the perfect excuse for much of my debauchery.  

It wasn’t until decades and decades later that I finally understood what was happening to my mother.  As I fully understand if now, her body was preparing her for a reduction of all the hormones essential for producing a child, and it was physically and emotionally tormenting her. I won’t go through the steps in this cycle, as I am nowhere near the expertise of a gynecologist, much less someone who could accurately describe this very personal and difficult process. However, I am old enough, now, to understand and affix the deepest of apologies.  An apology to my mother.  It was the early 70’s, and what was occurring in my home was occurring in dam near every home, on my block.   In my neighborhood, sadly, a lot of the men found a timeless solution to this biological problem.  Just leave, and that’s what many did.  Single family homes started cropping up everywhere, and oddly enough, as a teen it never dawned on me what was actually occurring.  It was always being inaccurately reported, as men absolving themselves of their responsibilities.  Then strangely it hit me, like a baseball to my head!  All the mothers in and around my neighborhood, at the time, were about my mother's age; I won't get into their names for privacy reasons.  But I went to school and played sports with their sons so I knew who they were.   It was like a phenomenon, one day a father was there, and then, one day he wasn't.  I need to reiterate this, how it was being reported by the media, at the time, no research was undertaken to determine other possible and underlying reasons.  At the time, this was just plain weird, but I was a teen, I didn't affix my gaze on this issue until I became a man, with a wife and a family.  But it now comes to me in clear focus, it was wrong just categorize this as absentee father.  It was never just that simple. 

This by no means is being presented as an excuse.  However, if it was difficult, if not impossible, for me as a young kid to understand what was going on with my mother, and my friends too were experiencing this.  I imagine it must have been an equal if not a greater challenge for many of these men in my neighborhood, who like my father worked hard, but often lacked significant education, as well as access to medical explanations.  Communication and dialogue regarding the physiological and biological conditions caused by pre and post Menopause, was not in existence then.   Looking back on those days, the word contentious comes to mind.  However, I must express this with the greatest appreciation to my father, as he never left.  He never parked the car on another block or driveway, or lingered at a bar long after closing, and he came home every day after work.  Every day.  My mother eventually had a procedure done, at the time I wasn’t told much if anything, however, during conversations now as an adult, it was revealed to me; the what and the why.  This is a reminder, that Women, like my mother, my Aunt Ruth, and so many more, unbeknownst to us, quietly, with courage and conviction, go about Conquering Pain with a dignity to never surrendered to it.  Understanding now the only procedure offered to a lot of women, especially women of color, at the time exemplifies the need to have Faith.  This procedure, and the effects it had on my mother; If it worked, only seemed visually to me, to change her physically.  She went from a svelte size six to a slightly larger woman, especially in her face and girth.  That chapter of our life, of that time, cannot be written over or edited, only marked with an asterisk.  Pain can change everything, even relationships.  But my mother's courage, and my father's allegiance, probably defines why after almost 68 years they are still together.  Pain can also cement bonds.  

I have never had a surgery for the displacement or repair of something that was causing me Pain.  I have had stitches sewn in to close a wound, but never an actual surgical procedure.  I have to this day successfully refused them all.  That includes the one offered as a result of an injury that occurred during my failed attempt at believing that I could play professional football.   One hot June day, I was literally and figuratively knocked out of my senses from a crippling hit during a punt drill.  The collision was so violent that my neck whiplashed.  Later after driving myself, that's right driving myself, to the hospital.  It was revealed through x-rays that I had suffered an injury to my C-5 and C-6 the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae.  Ouch, football dreams over.  The doctors were amazed that I was still getting around normally, the recommendation at the time was for me to undergo fusion surgery.  Remember this was the early 80’s, and many of today’s surgical techniques had not yet been discovered.  I do remember vividly when the surgeon prescribed fusion surgery as the remedy.   I asked what it entailed?  The details he gave were so horrific that I almost became unhinged!   I remember the surgeon being so matter-of-fact in his explanation.  He and this group of operating surgeons were treating this as if it were routine; explaining that because I was so young that recovery would be quick, and I would have a full life.  As if they already knew my future.  I my reply was simple, “Hell No!”  It was one of the first times I had ever been that brash to a person whom I perceived was in authority.   I didn’t need counsel to make that decision.  That surgery was never going to conquer my Pain, and I was having Pain. It didn't matter if I were sitting, standing, walking and running.  Yes, I was still out trying run and playing basketball too.  What an idiot!  Turing my head or lifting my head up and down was especially painful.  Luckily, I was young, stupid, and still very pliable.  Through Divine Intervention (The Why) albeit the collision was so violent and football at its best is controlled violence, the collision caused me to become concussed, but I never fully lost consciousness or any permanent loss sensations to my extremital senses.   (Here you can apply your own explanation)  Ultimately, conquering that injury demanded that I face The Pain, and not allow it to restrict me, or my life.  That’s not to say that I was ignorant to the reality of what would happen if I attempted that action again (playing football); as this accident was meant as a lesson, from a higher power, for me to absolutely know my limitations.  My mission then became to ever so slowly, to increase my tolerance to Pain. All Pain the mental, and the physical.  Not an easy task, but thankfully there is no short supply of people who, and I'll stop short of saying, that they want to hurt you or I, and instead I'll just say, they aren't shy about how they feel when you or I are in Pain.  Especially if they are the causality or root of that Pain.

Women are the best example of the incredible ability of Conquering Pain.   It's called “Childbirth…!”  I have had the profound gift of witnessing, with the exception of one child, the birth of all my children. A few of these births turned into a real-life race against causality.  If there was ever a time to see, in real time, what Conquering Pain really looks like; it was during these moments.  The strength and courage exhibited transforms into extraordinary starting at about six centimeters in dilation.  What I saw, at the time, on Rose's face, was more determination than words could aptly describe.  If any of you have had the opportunity to be a part of this most amazing event leave a comment.  Childbirth is more than just Conquering Pain, it is a display of sheer Will that refuses to allow Pain to assume control over life and this moment in life.  Maybe someone you know has also displayed courage in a similar fashion that you have never thanked them for.  You know, it's never too late to do just that.  

Conquering Pain as a child, changes you.  At 11 eleven years of age, I vividly remember watching nearly every day as my best good friend, at the time, Tony Mitchell, lay slowly dying from Childhood Leukemia.  We were classmates and the best of troublemakers at the then School of the Advent.  It's funny sometimes, because of circumstances, talking in class, you find your best good friend.  As kids, getting in and out of trouble is what we did best, and always laughing after getting away with it.  I look back on that time now, and I understand why John Gunther's, poignant novel “Death Be Not Proud” is still one of my favorite books.   Symptoms of this disease, Childhood Leukemia, are so benign, it was hard for me to understand why Tony couldn't keep up anymore, or why he now got so badly bruised when we did our usual silly things on our bikes.  Later I was told by my mother, with his mother there, what was going on.  Time for a child is not like a movie.  It's closer to a single picture, a snapshot, one taken everyday.  I watched, like a single snapshot, taken everyday, as my friend's mobility rescinded from bike riding in the neighborhood to just maybe getting up out of the bed to walking around in his room flipping baseball cards, to just him lying in bed and us talking, nothing serious just kids talking.  Since he wasn't going to school anymore, I was the informant.  I kept him up to date on all the musings going on while he was away.  Then I watched as his skin color seemed to change from what I would describe as Glossy Chestnut to a Pale Black Sapphire.  I watched as his lips chapped, and his eyes seemed to lose the white. Strangely, what I don’t ever remember is him crying.  Tony never cried, at least not when I was in the room with him.  A few times, I would visit him, and there would be a Dr. his room administering an IV.  Before then, even though my mom was a nurse, I had never seen an IV bag much less a needle placed in someone’s arm.  I always turned away, Tony didn’t.  Beyond a grimace, he never surrendered to it.  The Pain.  

Finally, I think of all the prose and poems I have ever read and can recite.  A poem called "Invictus" may have said it best regarding Conquering Pain.

"Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning's of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul."
 William Ernest Henley.    

I have learned from just watching and bearing witness, that it’s not impossible.  Pain can be Conquered. 

Privately, I channeled Tony's strength to help me conquer my very personal battle with pain and Pain Pills.  I generally never attach anything personal to the site but sometimes proof is essential.  Below is a picture that illustrates what the two fights against pain really looks like from those who suffer from it.  One fight is against our bodies, the other is against the Medical Profession.  I am not pain free, but I now control pain. Pain doesn’t control me.

If you have or know of anyone who has any stories discussing "Conquering Pain".  Please feel free to share your thoughts and or comments at Sixtyisthenew4orty@gmail.com Thank you and Please Subscribe.