Far From Me

This is my day-to-day: how will I cope with pain? I wake with a migraine or arthritic pain in my legs and joints. I’m dealing with something chronic, something that won’t let go. It’s my immune system attacking my joints. It’s extra fluid that swells my head. I can’t move. I remember it got so bad I had hot towels on my head and feet for hours. Sometimes drugs do nothing.

When I wake now, I go through this process: Am I in pain? Did I wake because of pain? Or do I wake because I’m no longer sleepy? The pain dictates my day. There’s a separate path I go down if I’m in pain. For instance, I have to call for help to get up. I keep the phone by me.

I’m not being punished for anything.

But if I’d made better choices earlier in life. If I’d been more proactive about the disease, more compliant to my doctors. I came to the idea that I am responsible for own health too late. This is one of my regrets.

Sometimes the swelling causes my fingers to flex shut. My wrists turn inward. My body becomes one cramped muscle. Once, the nurses gave me a steroid shot in the palm. It felt like the needle would go all the way through. The steroids put down the swelling.

When others aren’t around for me, I pray. I pray in an outward direction, in a spiral circling out of myself towards those around me — my immediate family, aunts and uncles, and then my friends. This prayer radiates from the center of me. I imagine my church. I imagine each pew and I go through each person. I think of the people at work, and then I imagine myself going through each cubicle. I remember what it was like to drive a car, and I imagine the people on the road.

I pray for every person.

I imagine them all, comfortable, pain-free. I appeal to God to meet them in their needs. I worry over the young people, and I consider what I can do to make them feel appreciated and celebrated. I pray God grants them the desires in their hearts. I reach out towards a place I cannot see. God knows what they need.

After this prayer, my mind calms. I feel the horrible vice of pain release by degrees. Pain has a way of letting go. It comes uninvited. It leaves unannounced. And then it becomes a memory.

Psalm 22:19 — “But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me.”