Pain

I am stuck at home in bed this week because I can barely walk. It all started from an intestinal infection and a round of cipro antibiotics that have an unusual side effect of causing ruptured tendons.

This past Sunday morning I noticed my legs were hurting and by mid morning they hurt so bad I could barely walk. By Sunday evening they felt like I had run 100 miles and had a nuclear bad build up of lactic acid. By Monday morning the pain had settled in my left leg. The muscle was so sore I could not touch my leg and it was knotting up and trying to cramp with the slightest movement. As the week has worn on I have talked to a number of different people with some suggestions on what to do. One suggestion that sounded very good at first was a muscle relaxer or topical pain ointment. However after thinking about this for a while it occurred to me that if I was not able to feel the pain I would use my leg more than I should which could potentially lead to a damaged tendon.

This caused me to start thinking about the irony of pain. Pain hurts and we want it to go away but it is also pain which protects us from even more problems. Much of our life is spent trying to avoid pain- physical pain, emotional pain, and spiritual pain. We medicate to avoid pain. We engage in dangerous behavior to squelch pain. We indulge to subdue pain. The irony is that pain that is not recognized and dealt with leads to much greater problems. It allows us to pretend that there is not a problem that needs to be dealt with.

We can take pain pills, drive a fast car, drink or watch or smoke something, shop, give our kids or spouse whatever they want but failure to feel the pain will simply prolong the inevitable and quiet often make it worse. We live in a society that promotes happiness right now instead of dealing with the pain. We want to eat wrong, live wrong, spend wrong, behave wrong, and yet have no consequences. And when the consequences catch up we want to blame someone else.

Maybe we should not be so afraid of pain. Maybe we should instead learn to respect pain for what it is- a red light on your dashboard saying there is something wrong that needs immediate attention. Maybe we need to stop figuring out whose fault it is and simply take steps to make things better.