The Fine Art of Lament: Authentically sharing in another’s pain
*What follows is not an indictment or accusation intended of any specific person, time or event, nor does it serve to diminish the support of so many people*
Over the past months, I have been in various stages of health crisis. With multiple hospital stints, including a stay in ICU, and the diagnosis of a rare cancer-like condition, alongside the excision of a 25lb tumor and the loss of half my body weight (and I wasn’t skinny, I’ll tell you that much), it’s been an ordeal.
Not surprisingly, a two sentence introduction barely scratches the surface. I now carry by my side, tucked inside my pants, a bile bag, the constant reminder of an overworked and clogged common bile duct. Though the pain is at times unbearable, I have learned to live through it, thanks in part to the heavy use of prescribed opioid painkillers. My body fought to maintain itself, stripped down to nothing, the tumor having ripped through internal organs, causing my bowels to rupture. I spent weeks in a hospital bed, relearning basic human functions, from going to the bathroom to learning to walk again, forced to leave a job I had just started.
My brain is ravaged by the memories of drug-induced nightmares so terrifying I now believe that hell is a state-of-mind. From scary clowns turning carousels made of the skin of dead children, to the belief that I had killed another patient on my floor by splitting him in two with a wheelchair, from trains driving through a dystopian future Chicago, to being in the middle of a nuclear meltdown, my brain was so busy trying to make sense of what was happening to my body that sanity was nowhere to be found.
And then the weeks after the hospital visit, weeks where my loving wife shifted in and out of care-giver mode, giving me sponge baths when I couldn’t shower (still only a once-weekly luxury), coaxing me to eat, cleaning up after me when my body just couldn’t contain itself, telling me she loves me but can’t recognize the body I am in.
Even now, the trips to the emergency room always make me smile, as I get halfway through explaining my case before the light bulb goes on and the triage nurse exclaims “Yes! I’ve heard of you.” There’s the fantastic nurses on the 6th floor at Grand River Hospital who now recognize me on sight and my surgeon looking at me and smiling saying “Peter. You’re back here. What now?”
Gone are the days where I take a breakfast meeting, work a full 8 hours, and then head off to a political function or board meeting. Gone are the days where I could go swimming with friends, let alone count on a daily shower. Gone are the days where I can crawl into bed without first emptying a bag of body sludge. Gone are the days where I can leave the house and not worry at all about whether or not I have the ability to make it home.
My brain is sluggish. My body is weak.
I am a changed person.
As I process all that has and continues to happen, I am often left confused and sad. I think about all that I have lost and have hope for a future me that incorporates this new health reality. I think about all there is to gain and often come up empty-handed. If I can barely climb two flights of stairs without collapsing, if I am unable to go back to the work for the foreseeable future, if I cannot do something as integral to a committed relationship as making love, then who am I?
One of the things I learned early on in this experience was the need to be honest. If a nurse asked me what my pain level was, it just wouldn’t do to say it was a 3 when it was really a 6. There are no heroes when it comes to pain management. Additionally, if it was a 3, there was no point in saying it was at a 6 — extra drugs only result in more nightmares and foggy-headedness. When I did have visitors, it did me and my visitor no good if I wasn’t honest with them about how I felt at the time — why would I waste their visiting time and suffer unnecessarily, when I should have been sleeping?
Being able to accurately, reasonably, and honestly communicate how I feel is not only important to my healing, it is essential to my care, both in the hospital and at home.
As I think about who I am now, I see that I want nothing but my authentic self on display. If I hurt, I need to be able to share that with others appropriately, and in a way that acknowledges pain. If I am hopeful, I need to be able to express that hope, even if it is tinged with worry. If I am frustrated, I owe it to myself and to those who care for me to express it in a healthy and meaningful way.
The truth is that these expressions won’t always be positive. In addition to the physical toll, there is a mental, emotional, relational and spiritual cost to ill health. Processing the many facets of what has happened and what continues to happen will take time, just as the healing process takes time. It’s not enough to suggest that the sick look at the world through rose-coloured glasses, that a positive spin will make a difference. It’s not enough to look beyond the disappointment of all that was lost. It’s not enough to ask someone to look the other way and move forward, as if somehow ignoring the reality of the situation will make it better.
It sucks to be sick. It sucks even more to have your life turned upside down and all around by that illness. But there is honesty in the hopelessness of the sick, an authenticity that many who face much more serious ailments than I are not always able to openly express.
When we sugar coat the authentic lament of someone who is sick by asking them to look forward to a positive future, I submit that we don’t actually help them heal. When the emotional pain is an 8, when loss of identity dials up to 10 and everything falls apart, convincing someone that a change in personal attitude is the answer is about as helpful as a nurse telling a patient that the pain they report will go away, if only they’d stop worrying so much. And that’s not very much help at all.
