debilitation

I don't think most people understand illness. Moreover, I don't think most people understand pain. I don't know what it looks like from the outside, but a lot of people certainly don't understand it, even after living with someone who's chronically ill for months.

Today, for some reason, I want to explain about it. Perhaps someone will read this—big leap, I know—and realize that perhaps the person they thought was whiny may actually be suffering.

First, let me disclaim a few things: hypochondria is hard to rule out. Hypochondria is, in itself a real mental problem that would indicate a totally different type of suffering; further, the things a hypochondriac experiences feel real to them. In a way, I'd like to tell them to snap out of it, but I know it's not that simple. More importantly, failing to exercise and keep one's body in reasonable shape can result in a sort of general lousy feeling that a lazy person may exploit to pretend to chronic illness. What I'm aiming to talk about here is something else.

A small amount of constant pain can be debilitating. I don't think people who've never experienced that realize it. But, imagine if flexing your stomach muscles turned a constant low, dull pain into a sharp, intense pain. Consider when you need to flex your stomach muscles: getting up from a bed or chair, for example.

Today, for the first time in five or six days, I woke up suddenly free of the kind of pain I just described. During that time, I could barely do anything—even a slow walk on a level surface tired me out in less than a quarter of a mile.

I can't—and don't want to—imagine what a serious chronic pain, constant over a period of years, must be like.

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That last link seems to have broken. I hope it'll be back, but I can't help but wonder if it was removed intentionally. The topic is the death of that author's brother-in-law, Brad. Brad suffered from tremendous, constant pain, for twelve years before a new treatment solved the pain. Exactly one month later, he died. A complication from one of the many operations he'd had caused a stroke.