I spoke to a mentor of mine last week – the first time since coming back from Egypt, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and the Maldives. “You get about, don’t you,” he said.
My immediate reaction is a kind of guilt. He could see this and added: “I think it’s great. Do it while you can, because you won’t be able to do it forever, that’s for sure.” He said it knowingly, and I agreed with him – such is life.
He says this from his new apartment in a warden protected building. He had a debilitating illness many years ago which affected his movement and speech. He’s had great difficulties since our first fortuitous meeting, nearly 12 years ago in Tossa de Mar. We very quickly realised we shared the same crack in our souls, we were the same kind of seekers – and we liked the same sort of music. I found his life story incredibly inspiring, and I asked him for his help on this strange old journey of life. He agreed. Despite his difficulties, my mentor has kept travelling over the years, visiting America and Europe, seeking and sharing experiences along the way. This was until a couple of years ago when his condition worsened, which forced him out of his home and into supported living.
In the time I’ve known him, he’s had several near-death experiences, but he just keeps on going. I attribute this partly to his frame of mind. He’s not a man who lives for himself. He has an ego, and he’d be the first to admit it, but life began dismantling it and since then, he’s tried to dismantle it himself, mostly by focusing on helping others. I’m one of those people.
Why am I writing this?
Last week, on a boat in Amsterdam, I tripped on a metal bar. The boat owner tried to stop my fall and yanked me back, but my shins took a nasty whack, both immediately swelling with sacks of blood. Beck said: “I hope that doesn’t spark a fibro”.
Sure enough, the next day my neck, shoulders and arms started to ache – reinvigorating the pain from a trapped nerve which seemed to be in remission. The following day, back home, I couldn’t move without agonising electric shocks. I ended up in A&E, and was sent home with strong painkillers. The next day I endured the continued debilitating pain, hoping it would soon ease, but the following day it was worse, and I was unable to get dressed, eat or drink unaided. An ambulance came out – 111 didn’t seem to know what else to do. They told me I needed to go back to A&E. The ambulance men shoved me in the car and Beck drove me back there. They did an X-Ray, nothing broken. The Doc tried to order an MRI but the powers that be deemed it unnecessary – just another fibro case, I guess. Truth be told, I’m not sure it would’ve been possible to sit still anyway, at this point unable to sit, stand or lie without agonising pain.
I’ve barely slept in a week, 1 – 3 hours most nights, sometimes sleeping kneeling on the floor with my face flat against the footstool to try to steady my electric neck. The doctors have fed me oromorph, tramadol, diazepam, zapain and now pregabalin. Whether I’ve wanted them or not, I would’ve had no respite without them and, even with them, I’ve felt like I’m going mad.
I’ve got fibromyalgia and pain has been commonplace for me for years now. I wake up in pain, I work in pain, I live in pain, sometimes just background noise which I’ve learnt to forget. I’ve tackled it with diet – as best I can – and exercise, and some medication. I haven’t let it stop me living life. But it has stopped me to some degree, it’s slowed me down and lowered my ambitions (which might seem strange to some people that know me); it’s meant I’ve had to prioritise my life to do what I feel is important. I’ve been incredibly lucky with it, and I can see by my interaction with others who share the illness, I’m on the better side of the spectrum.
This week, I feel like I’ve been getting a taste of what it’s like to be on a different side of the spectrum. I’m sure there are much worse cases, and there are clearly people in far worse situations, but I’ve been housebound, reliant on Beck, and there’s just no position to get comfortable in. I’ve been in constant pain, unable to rest, read, write or lift my head to even watch TV – just the odd podcast in the background. Painkillers dull it enough to be able to sit with bearable pain for limited periods of time (an hour or two), but the moment I get up and walk to the loo or the kitchen, the pain forces my body to contort, bends it into submission and I’m forced to sit again and into a period of readjustment, until the pain can dull again (sometimes it doesn’t and I pace, sit, kneel, pace, kneel, lean against the wall, sit, try to lie down, kneel, pace again).
I said to my mentor the other day, “do you feel like your wings have been clipped?”
“No,” he said. “Life is so much deeper than this.”
But to see beyond the pain is hard to do and for days it hasn’t really entered my mind. But after a week of it I’ve finally realised that’s what I have to do: a chink of light is shining into that cracked soul.
I don’t know why I’m going through what I’m going through right now. I guess lots of us go through this at times in our lives. Some will say it’s because you had an accident, your nerve is trapped, disc slipped, rotator cuff diseased, but I know it’s more than that. This is merely a week in my life, a snippet in the full scale of my tiny time on earth – although it’s felt much longer – but these are the times that change us. I’ve had my fair share of these challenging times in my life, one way or another, and I believe I’ve needed all of them. Sometimes you just can’t help yourself, no matter how hard you try, sometimes it takes a metal bar on a boat in Amsterdam.
After writing the above, I forced myself to go outside. I lay down on the grass, the sun warm on my face, the wind bringing every tree, shrub and blade of grass to life around me. Charlie came and purred at my face. My arms behind my head to try to contort away the pain, my knees trembling with the reality of it, but fuck it all, for a few moments it was beautiful and it couldn’t be anything else.
Right now, I should be in the pub having a meal to celebrate Beck’s mum’s birthday. Instead, I’m at home, where I’ve been for a week. But I don’t feel alone. And I’m not just talking about the cats.
Pain is a symptom of life. Change your perception of it, and you change your life.