by S. Abbas Raza
A few weeks ago I suffered a herniated cervical disc (a part of the upper spine) resulting in extreme pain in my neck, left shoulder, and left arm which has resulted in my having to be flat on my back in a supine position 24 hours a day for a couple of weeks. This was the position in which I had the least pain, even though it was sometimes quite a bit even like that. Several doctors have now told me that it is one of the most painful conditions they know of, and managing this pain is a major part of what they try to do with people who have this not uncommon problem.
Sitting or standing or any other position in which the weight of my head (around 10 pounds) was on my neck resulted in severe pain within 30 seconds at first but then fortunately this interval grew longer over the days and the pain would come more slowly. This meant that to urinate, for example, I had to quickly rush into the toilet and could only half go before the pain would hit hard and I had to stop and rush back to some horizontal surface and lie down. After a couple of days I lay down on the floor of our shower stall with my legs sticking outside and learned to take showers that way with my wife’s help. I also had to eat lying down which is difficult. Using a computer was also not easily possible, and that is why I was away from 3QD for some time for the first time in more than 20 years. My wife devoted herself completely to taking care of me and my needs and took time off work and my sister Sughra who is a doctor also came from Boston to help. So that’s what’s been happening, in case you were wondering why the magazine posts at 3QD were missing (as was I) for a couple of weeks.
But I want to tell you about a specific and unexpected experience that I had: A few days after this problem started I was still in a lot of pain and was taking some heavy prescription painkillers including opioids. I had an appointment a couple of days later to see a neurosurgeon who would determine if I needed surgery to correct the problem. (I do not, at least yet.) So on this particular day, the morning had been one of continuous pain but by afternoon, as I was lying flat on the sofa in our living room, I noticed the pain lessening significantly. For the first time, I felt that I might be getting better. And right then a fully-formed sentence gurgled up from the depths of my brain and surfaced in my consciousness with all the force of an urgent, desperate plea, and it was this: “My beautiful, beautiful pain, please don’t abandon me!” And I was immediately gripped by a panic that the pain might go away. Not that it wouldn’t go away but panic at the thought of no pain! I was not in any state to make sense of all this but there could not have been any more clarity in my acutely-felt desire that the pain remain with me, at least in that moment. The idea of the pain leaving me almost made me weep and I addressed the pain directly: “Pain, I love you,” I said. Read more »