A minor procedure

Epidural injections to perhaps relieve some effects of spinal stenosis. Immediately afterwards, I am feeling fabulous. I didn’t know, until my entire lower back was made numb, how incredibly wonderful it would feel to have no pain! I could stand up to make my dinner. A miracle. I could walk without having to stop to sit on a bench, a rock, a step, a tree root. I was not exhausted by walking home from the hospital. I felt like dancing. Astonishing. I feel 20 years younger tonight, and I am moved to great compassion for the body I have pushed aside, denied, punished…thinking this is what Aging means. This pain. I have to accept it, adapt to it.

But no. It is possible that when the numbing wears off, the pain will return. It is possible the steroid will not change the bulging disk, the inflammation. I will go for PT again, do what they tell me. But I put this here to remind myself that on May 25, 2023, I had some utterly painless hours. It is a revelation. I had no idea. It has been so long, it crept up slowly, I have been shouldering an enormous weight of pain and deprecating my weariness, my need to do less, to sit down. I tried to keep up. I felt ashamed. Total double standard: I would never blame others for their pain or feel they had failed to be stoic enough, to adapt. But tonight I see what it’s like to be pain-free, and it is the opening of a curtain on a new stage. Who are these characters? I am curious.

I think of the many heroic people I know, here and in Africa, and in other places, who never get a break. They carry their pain to the grave. Some cannot bear it and end their lives. I respect that. Sometimes we get more than we can bear. There is unstinting physical pain; there is the psychic pain of schizophrenia, clinical depression, bipolar or borderline personality disorder. And no moment like this. No hour to see clearly how heavy the load has been. Compassion tears through me, rips my heart open, and I honor that suffering with deep respect.