The Invisibility of Chronic Pain
And the universal truths we mentally suffer for it
“Some people come just for the high,” the ER nurse quipped with a smirk as she administered a second IV push of dilaudid. “Hospital heroin; that’s what they call it,” she continued, shaking her head. She made this remark, I figured, because I’d just complained of an uncomfortable sensation of panic as the drug seared through my veins and clouded my consciousness. Kind of like that feeling in dreams where you’re inexplicably standing atop a New York skyscraper and suddenly slip from the edge, free-falling, until you’re jolted awake.
“Oh…I… can imaaagine — ” I heard myself slurring, half-gone. But my words betrayed me; I couldn’t really understand why this would be a sensation anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to, let alone seek out.
I mean, I get that it’s different for everyone. I know we all have our own ideas of what constitutes “a good time,” but the only good part about this whole nightmarish ordeal was when the scorching nerve pain began to ebb. The unrelenting, electric agony from cervical spinal stenosis, finally melting away into nothingness, was the only good part.
Aside from that, the protocol was anything but good; it was torturous. Because when you’re at the point where the pain is so domineering that you…
