Chronic pain – Cynthia Reyes

My staircase looked as tall as Mount Everest. But there was no alternative: I’d have to climb the mountain.

My back and leg were on fire with pain. As I’d done so many times before, I stood at the bottom of the stairs, summoning the courage. Then I started climbing — on hands, feet and knees — and told myself that I was a brave mountaineer. Sometimes, you just have to lie to yourself and hope yourself believes it.

At the top landing, I sat down. The truth was that I felt exhausted, sorry for myself and not at all brave. But it was worth the trip upstairs to my office. An email came from my husband, who’d left for work early that morning.

“Forgot to tell you”, he wrote. “I heard a Cardinal singing this morning. I looked out the kitchen door and saw a female… the male must have been nearby.”

I smiled. I could almost hear the bird singing. Could almost believe that spring had really arrived and winter was really over.

It was mid- afternoon and my daughter’s little dog, Mr. D., woke up and headed downstairs. It was time for his walk around the garden.

Together we went out the door and into the garden, snowflakes swirling around us.

He scampered along and I followed slowly, leaning on my cane. His fur is white, making him invisible against the snow without his sweater on. And he’s so small that the low boxwood plants that border the centre garden bed can hide him completely.

At one point I couldn’t see Mr. D. at all, though he was standing just a few feet away, wearing his sweater. Then I saw a blur of black and white speeding around the boxwood circle. I smiled. He slowed down till I caught up.

When we returned to the front doorway, I saw a small box, with my name on it.

I tore open the cardboard. There was a book inside.

It was Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things. I’d been wanting to read it.

There was a short note accompanying the book:

“For Cynthia, who notices things ‘close up’ and understands in both visceral and transcendent ways the ‘Signature of All Things’ and can write so beautifully even when she hurts.”

It was from Jacqui, who works at the London Public Library. How did she know? I wondered. How did she know that on a day like today, this gift would cheer me up no end?

I smiled. The angel at work again.

Sometimes the angel is a sound: the song of a cardinal on a winter day; the harmony played by the wind chimes on our verandah; the hilariously huge snore that comes from a tiny dog’s body as he snoozes on the floor beside me.

Sometimes she’s a scruffy-looking stranger. The young man who rushed to open a heavy door for me, his kind smile illuminating his entire face.

Sometimes she’s a friend. Jacqui, sending me that book. My husband, telling me that spring is here: the birds are singing. My sister, showing a keen understanding.

The phone rang. My sister had asked me – I forget when, exactly – to find out something for her. I did. But now she was on the phone, asking for the answer, and I couldn’t remember what it was that I’d found out. Too much pain, too little sleep, for days and nights on end. I felt ashamed to tell her that I couldn’t remember. I tried to speak; instead of words, a disjointed stutter was all I could manage. For just a moment, I felt as if I might burst into tears.

My sister recognized the warning signs and reacted quickly.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Just stop everything and rest now.”

Image Via achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com/ — Via achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com/

I imagine that if the angel ever showed up as herself, she’d look like my mother: soft brown skin, short, silver-grey hair, the picture of serenity. In the meantime, she takes different forms and sounds, and helps me out when I least expect it.

“How do you manage to project such positive thoughts on your blog when you’re feeling so miserable?” a friend asked me one day. She’d paid me a surprise visit, and found me struggling to get around.

“When I write on my blog, I try to uplift my readers,” I replied. “Not sure what it does for them, but it sure makes me feel better!” At that, we’d both shared an understanding laugh and sipped our tea.

Of course, I should also have said: “Did I ever tell you about the angel?”

Dedicated to Merle, Jane, Joanne — and all the other angels in my life.

Once a month, at the same time, in the same restaurant in a suburban mall, I meet Arna and Phyllis for lunch.

I’d never have met these women were it not for the many sessions we attended together at Toronto Rehabilitation hospital, trying to come to terms with chronic pain, trying to figure out alternatives to narcotic painkillers.

The group is one of my two separate trios of “Toronto Rehab grads” . We meet regularly to support each other.

You might expect us to be miserable, and sometimes we are. But among each other, there’s no need to pretend. No need to say “I’m fine, thanks,” when you’re not. We’d see right through it.

“Seriously – how are you really feeling today?” Someone will ask, looking you straight in the eye.

And out comes the truth: “It’s been a really crappy week. The pain’s been very bad.”

But as Arna reminds us: “I might be in pain but I don’t have to BE a pain.”

And so we laugh. Perhaps the most surprising thing is how much laughing we do. In my second trio, Penny has the talent of cracking up Joan and me with one short sentence. The woman is a born comic.

“Why don’t you write comedy?” I ask her.

“Because it’s just stuff I say,” she replies. “I don’t even know it’s funny till someone laughs.”

We laugh at the silliest things. Maybe that’s because we give each other license to SAY the silliest things to each other. Like the day when Arna and I both noticed that Phyllis seemed unusually stressed. Turns out, she’d been struggling with pain and allergies, but Phyllis was still pushing herself hard to get certain tasks completed.

“You need to rest,” Arna advised.

“I’m too tired to rest,” Phyllis promptly replied.

“You’re too tired to rest?” I asked in disbelief.

As if on cue, the three of us burst out laughing.

Chronic pain never rests. The very term “chronic” means that it’s with you all the time; only the severity fluctuates. Sunny, cool, dry days are helpful to some people. Wet, cold, humid days are agony to many. And freezing temperatures? Extreme cold does a number on both our bodies and our minds.

We learned several drug-free techniques at Toronto Rehab. Laughter is just one of them.

The act of staying in touch, and keeping these lunch appointments, are two of the tools we use to fight back against the depression that’s a travelling companion of chronic pain. And when we laugh at the ridiculous things we say on a day when even the act of walking is painful – we’re not just using one of the tools we learned – we’re also kicking chronic pain in the teeth.

Chronic pain kicks us in the butt all the time. Kicking it in the teeth once a month is the least we can do in return.

This post is dedicated to Joan, Penny, Arna and Phyllis — and to everyone who struggles with a chronic illness.