My shoulder hurts.
They say you should write about what you know. This is what I know: my shoulder hurts. It feels like someone lit a little fire somewhere under my left shoulder blade and the flames are licking up my neck and down my arm. I don’t know why it hurts or why it feels like a fire and not, say, a vice or a meat grinder. I’m hoping the doctor will shed light on this corporeal mystery when I see her in a few days time.
In the meantime I am icing my upper left side till its numb, taking Tylenol with codeine, mooching shoulder rubs from my husband, and wondering how in the name of all that’s good people live with chronic pain.
I’m also wondering what it means to be a spiritual, yet bodily being. (I know, big stuff. Pain does that, makes a philosopher out even the most simple minded. It also makes you a whiner, but that’s beside the present point.)
Here’s what I’ve come up with ... hold onto your hats, this is going to be good, born, as it is, out of suffering ...
We are creatures.
Dum, dum, dum!
But wait, there’s more...
We are, in fact, earthlings -- formed from the dust, as our creation narrative goes. We are simple stuff – earthen vessels -- frail, easily damaged, dependant. A little dose of pain is all it takes to realign us to this reality. A little dose of pain is all it takes to realign us to a posture of dependence on God and to a posture of solidarity with our fellow suffering earthlings.
Perhaps this explains why, in the midst of this pain, I’ve also had this deep, inexplicable sense of joy. Perhaps I’m being realigned.
Author’s note: Some of you, dear blog friends, might be worried that I have caused myself further pain by typing this wee post for your enjoyment and edification. Not at all. Happily, if I sit just so, with my computer on my lap, ice on my shoulder, and feet on the coffee table, I experience no extra pain (meaning no extra pain above the fiery pain I’m already feeling). But thanks for your concern.
1 comment:
My dear Leah--my condolences. Amazing how the twitches of mortality can be so distressing!
I had very similar pain off and on for years (being a therapist I tended to simply bear up stoically under it). Several rounds of physio didn't help, but what cured me after one session was intramuscular stimulation--IMS--at a physio clinic. It's been a year now with no recurrences! Can't say enough good things about it. Google it, message me for more if need be! Take very good care, Mim
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