Pain

I need to describe this to you. I can say “pain” and get nods. But I need to describe in detail without using the word pain what this is like, especially what it has been like the last few days.

First, think back to the last steak you put on the grill and how the rack lines seared into the flesh, creating a deeper and deeper indentation. This is the burning, searing pain.

Cutting through a tough cardboard box with very dull scissors, only to have it snag and catch every few centimeters, is akin to the dull pain that takes over most of my lower back, hips, butt, and thighs.

Now for the nerve pain, the headstrong and unpredictable nerve pain, that can drop me to the ground at its worse and make my entire body twitch at its best. Imagine an old mercury thermometer sitting in the hot sun, perhaps the hot sun of the high desert. It shoots upward, and recedes, shoots upward, and recedes. (To be clear, in my case, it shoots downward, but you get the point.)

And finally, the stabbing. If you’ve ever had a nail through your heel or kitchen knife through a finger, you are on the right track. But this is how I see it: a thick carpenter’s nail is being hammered only slightly successfully through a block of concrete. The small fractures and fissures point to the fact that the whole block feels it, and it is a constant endeavor, moreover one can’t help but wonder if you could just drive the nail clean through, get it over with, wouldn’t it feel better?

That’s the worst of it. Knock on wood?