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.
Later that afternoon, as I lay there trying to think about all this using a brain still addled with opioid painkillers and several other kinds, I started to understand what had happened, I think. At least I was able to invent a plausible explanation for the eruption of this unexpected and bizarre emotion for myself: For the past several decades I had never been so completely free of the normal anxieties and worries of life (and I am a particularly anxious person) as I had been in the previous few days. The pain had been all-consuming of my consciousness much of the time and simply did not allow other thoughts to enter my mind. It was as if I had found a pure kind of mindfulness which I had never been able to attain over years of attempts at regular daily meditation. I hadn’t been in the least worried about my medical condition or what it might mean for the future either and was happy to let others think about that and make decisions on my behalf: my wife, my doctors, my family. I was able (or perhaps forced) to just let everything go, to release control. And I liked it. I loved it. And I had simply panicked at the idea that normal life with all its attendant worries and concerns and annoying responsibilities was about to come roaring back if the pain left me, that’s all. Did I learn something from this experience? No, I don’t think so. Will I live my life differently in the future because of it? No. Not everything has to have didactic value! Sometimes one just has an experience. And is glad to have had it.
My doctors started a program of daily intravenous infusions of steroids and some other medications designed to calm the inflamed nerve root coming off the spinal cord which was being compressed by the two prolapsed discs in the spinal column in my neck. I had to be driven to a hospital about a half hour away each day for this treatment and this was hard to manage even though I was lying down in the car. I am done with that now and am continuing steroid and other therapy at home. I still have some ways to go and it is not clear how long it may take (probably some weeks at least) to become very close to normal but I am slowly getting better every day.
I have also achieved relief from the pain, for the most part. But I am unlikely to forget that the pain itself was also a beautiful relief. From life.
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This was written for my sisters Azra and Sughra, and my wife Margit.
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P.S. I am improving daily and on Friday was able to drive myself high into the mountains near our house and walk around for a while on a crisp day, something I enjoyed very much.
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