Pain, Then and Now

I vaguely remember pains of the past, scrapes, cuts, and bruises. The first that I can really remember was the time I spent in the hospital having my tonsils removed. That was short-lived and faded quickly.

The next was the time I was playing softball in first grade. I was hit in the face by a bat, swung by another kid. The bat popped out the lens of my glasses and the lens made an inch long laceration in my eyebrow. (Yes, I wore glasses in first grade.) The cut caused a flap of skin that drooped over my eye. Blood streamed into my eye. The teacher called my mom. My mom borrowed a car and we drove to Melcroft, Pennsylvania to the family doctor. (Doc Norton delivered me.)

The office overlooked a stream and was a converted house. Inside smelled of antiseptic and stringent cleaning supplies. After I was settled on an examining table, Old Doc Norton injected Novocain into the area surrounding the laceration with fiery, stinging pain. After a short wait, his quick sure hands, stitched the flap back into place.

A myriad of bumps and bruises happened as I grew up. One summer I sprained my ankle three times in a row. The pain from those injuries was minimal considering the pain I felt as a young man sitting idle all summer vacation with nothing to do.

I developed a cellulitis on the inner aspect of my left knee. It sidelined me for a week in a hospital getting injections of Penicillin in my fanny twice a day. I soon got tired of the painful pricks of the needles and the soreness of the injection sites in my muscles.

Now that I am older, the aches and pains are of a longer duration. The recent fall on ice in February, gave me two bleeds in my head. I was grounded for a month to recuperate and still have a five hour memory loss. Recently I am having pain in my right knee and my lower back. Are the pains from the fall? I’m not sure. The one thing that I do know is that the pains are longer in duration and that they slow me down.

This morning, as with several other mornings, I awoke with a stiff and sore neck. I was already diagnosed that I have arthritic bone spurs in my neck. The pains have become more frequent since the fall and I am sure that the fall aggravated the arthritis.

The only good think about chronic pain is that I know that I am still alive.