How I Deal with Pain

Pain sucks, and there's no way around it. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I have a very high pain tolerance level. On one hand, that means that it takes a lot of suffering to knock me down. On the other, that means that it takes a lot of suffering to knock me down. The good news about having high pain tolerance is that I have developed several ways to cope. Most of them are pretty standard and logical, but it's always cool for me to think about the mentality that goes into dealing with pain.

Pain is divided into two classes for me. The first class is just your garden-variety pain. It's the kind of stuff everybody deals with on a daily basis. I'm actually a pretty big wuss when it comes to this class. In this instance, I'll usually be vocal about anything. I call it, "expressing my pain." I figure that because I have to use up so much energy for the real pain, I'm entitled to be a sissy over the sissy stuff. The second class is big-time, emotion draining pain. This is the stuff that requires my game face. Besides medication, the best, most effective method for fighting pain is meditative breathing.

A lot of the stuff I face happens in a medical setting. Controlled breathing is good for everyone involved. If you aren't used to managing such a situation, it's easy to panic, which makes things really hard on the medical professionals. If you panic, they have to stop what they're doing and that prolongs the entire process. Falling into a good rhythm of breathing goes a long way toward ensuring that I will stay calm. Then, it's difficult to explain, but I try to exist purely and completely within the moment of each breath. I direct all my energy toward each inhalation and exhalation. I think of myself in no other context but that present moment. Literally by living from moment to moment, I can break up the experience of pain into smaller, more manageable bits. It's quite a meditative process which is why I call it meditative breathing.

Certain kinds of music are very helpful. It has to have an especially rhythmic quality to it. Obviously, there are certain genres that are more conducive to rhythmic music, but the genre doesn't matter in reality if the song I'm listening to has the type of richness and repetition I need. Using music for pain management comes from the same place, essentially, as the meditative breathing. Listening to the right music requires less energy, however, so it's very useful when I'm tired. I can be a little more passive and, in some ways, a little more relaxed. This allows me to just "be" in the moment and focus on the experience of each tiny movement of music.

Humor is extremely valuable, especially in a more social setting, although still a medical one. If I'm laughing or joking about whatever it is I'm going through, it gets minimized mentally for me and becomes easier to manage. I usually can compartmentalize the pain and allow myself to be distracted by jokes. Those who know my sense of humor can also use it to gauge how I'm feeling. Sometimes, I can feel the anxiety of the other people around me, the medical people not working on me and my loved ones, and that makes it worse. Humor allows me to be engaged with them about something else and that relieves a little of the tension, usually enough for what I need.

The last thing about coping with pain is realizing that these personal methods are not enough to deal with everything. The physical portion of this fact means acknowledging that a painkiller regimen is necessary. Finding the right balance on that front took me a year and a half, but once I had it down, that part of it became very easy. Emotionally, I've accepted that I need to depend on those I love to help get me through the rest.

Update

Things are looking up. My health has been coming along, and I continue to grow in my confidence in the healing process. It seems that all the measures I've taken are doing a job. And, I'm quite sure that I've gotten enough inspiration for my writing from the medical world for the time being, although apparently it's the medical world's decision as to when it will stop inspiring me.

The most personal thing I'll tell you is also the best news of this blog entry. I now have 11 days without doctors! I'm hoping to really treat this like a vacation. Obviously, I plan to live it up like my plane is going down.

The USC Trojans almost had to do that as well. They had a bumpy start to the big weekend. I'm really excited for this year's installment of one of the very best rivalries in all of sports. Experts always say you can throw out the records when USC and Notre Dame compete against each other. I think that's true, so I'm excited for a great game.

If you've been following the college football season, you'll know that the Trojans have had some trouble as of late. I'm hoping that the importance of this week will get them firing on all cylinders and that they come out firing. The only thing I will predict is a big game from Joe "Cool" McKnight.

Until next time... Fight On! Beat the Irish!

Endurance

Note: This is a long one.

There are many kinds of endurance in life. The one I needed when my lung collapsed was very different from some other ones I've needed. It started with a complete drop in my spirits the moment I was diagnosed. I'll never forget it. I was somewhat concerned going in, just considering the fact that the chest pain I was experiencing had lasted for about a week. But I was concerned in the way you think, "I really should get this thing checked out and fixed." I had no idea what I was in for, but I recognized it the instant I saw the x-ray results. My heart dropped.

With as much experience with medical situations as I have had, I could almost say I have an amateur background in medicine. I can make educated guesses about the causes of symptoms I have or other people tell me about. Most medical professionals, when they meet me, also recognize that they can speak intelligently (as far as medicine goes) with me about whatever condition they are treating. Most especially, I have had enough x-rays that I can recognize basic and/or obvious issues pretty quickly. That was the case with my pneumothorax. I saw this steeply angled black triangle going diagonal from the top of my chest to my lower right side. Well, guess what, black in the middle of an x-ray is bad.

I remember sort of sinking my head back, almost before the doctor gave his diagnosis. Since I'd never heard of the technical term, pneumothorax, it gave me a moment of what was ultimately false hope when he said so matter-of-factly, "Oh yeah, he has a pneumothorax." Then he pointed it out, to be sure, and said, "Your right lung is completely collapsed." Even though, I have a good amount of basic medical knowledge, there are some areas that concern my health where fear overtakes thinking through the situation logically. Critical respiratory issues are one of those areas.

The tears were hard to restrain when the diagnosis hit home. I had a real mix of emotions at the time. I wanted to simply panic, but my stronger side held that in check because I think I knew deep down that the best thing I could do was listen to the doctor and prepare for whatever treatment was to come. Honestly, nothing could have prepared me. The doctor told me what he needed to, so I would understand the procedure, but nothing more, so I wouldn't go running for the hills.

Even not being fully aware of the pain I would endure, I was really scared. It's funny the different responses to fear people have. My reaction was to e-mail a lady friend of mine to whom I was close and hope for her support, even if it was just by knowing she would read it the next day. Thinking back, there are many reasons I chose her, but mostly it was because I assumed she could handle the bad news in its unresolved form. How presumptuous of me! And it was at the time, but the nice thing about hindsight is that now I know she was the perfect choice. Indeed, she wrote to me that night, comforting me, and telling me she was there. It was something crucial to hold on to during the following day with the procedure looming.

I awoke the next morning too early, naturally, and quickly got dressed and into the chair. My routine at the time was to take my morning medicine and then put on the breathing machine for an hour to make me comfortable. So I did that. Problem was, I had some bad pressure in my head and legs. Stress. Since we had to get to the hospital so early, I was only able to take half the time on the breather. The shortness of breath amped up the pain. Then it was time to get in the car.

It was cold. I remember vividly how freezing I felt when I got in the car. It was so, so cold. Of course, I asked for some heat but I barely began warming by the time I arrived at the hospital and had to get out. The rest of the ride I spent focused on breathing, both to compensate for the shortness and as meditation to fight the pain. This ride was way too short.

As much as I wanted the ride to take as long as possible, the wait I went through once I actually arrived at radiology was agonizing. At that point, when there was no escape, I just wanted to get it over with. I was still in terrible pain, hunched over and waiting for the key parts of my working lung to open up, and afraid. They called my name, and immediately that stuff meant nothing, well, except for the afraid part. There was just no way I would be mentally prepared in time.

I remember one of the office workers who takes care of registration coming in the radiology room and putting on my bracelet, and then the nurse who made the comment I'll never forget. To all the radiology nurses out there, please don't ever say this to a patient asking about the pain of having a lung reinflated: "Most patients describe it as annoying." Wow. Really didn't know how to take that one, so I disregarded it and focused on getting on the table & making sure I was as comfortable as possible. Amazing how little that mattered. After I got settled, I had to be alone except for the nurses and doctor. I was too disoriented to worry about that, and now I'm glad that no one stayed to watch the procedure.

There was this giant active x-ray machine over me, about 6 inches from my face. I'm lucky that I don't get claustrophobic, but I certainly felt like I was in it, in this thing 'til the end, and there was nothing I could do about it. The radiologist walked in, ready to go, and introduced himself. He rubbed some freezing cold alcohol on me and then marked a blue dot way over on the side of my right pectoral between two ribs. A lovely target. Then he put a sterile blue field over the area that actually sort of covered my face. It was disorienting, but looking back, it was good to be blocked from the vision of what the radiologist was doing. Last was the almost completely useless local anesthetic that could not possibly reach the area that needed it most. Then came the main event.

I felt the needle slide in the very superficial flesh, knowing I could take that. But then it met some stiff resistance: the chest wall. He said, "Okay here we go." As good a job he did, that innocent sentence struck the most fear into me. Before I could ask him what he was talking about, I felt him push really hard, I heard a pop, and there was a lightning strike. I knew then why God created the word, “fuck,” and I used that wisdom many times. Luckily, since I couldn't breathe, I couldn't say anything very loud. Soon, I was appealing to God directly. That was the worst pain in my life. I could not imagine being stabbed for real. The needle took a chest tube in with it so that the air in my chest cavity could be sucked out. It felt like a sumo wrestler sitting on my chest, and the pain was so, so unbearable as the lung re-expanded. Finally, the nurse asked if she could give me morphine. I answered, "Yes," almost before she finished asking me the question. First, the drugs brought me back to sanity and then I could actually feel good later when I was resting in an actual hospital bed.

Unfortunately, that is not the end as it I ended up requiring a hospital stay. But that is a different kind of endurance. And a morphine vacation is a much better way to end the day.