The most isolating experience on Earth
10 things I know to be true: three.
When I was in India for the first year, I practically lived in the school’s Medical Centre. Going to classes by day, I would return to the Med by night and sleep in the same room with the nurses, so that they could help make me herbal teas and call the doctor in case of emergency.
I didn’t know then, but I was allergic to cumin. To put things in perspective — cumin is as important to Indian cuisine as fish sauce is to Vietnamese. Even the air smelled of that earthy, dusty, gingery spice. One day, I suddenly collapsed on the stairs as several of us walked to school, because of an intense, excruciating stomach Pain that soon became my worst enemy for the next months, years, and occasionally to this day.
I remember waking up in the middle of the nights, sweating, crawling, suffering. The Pain started somewhere deep inside my existence, shuffling and swirling my internal organs, sucking out every last bit of positivity I reserve on moments like that. The Pain was invisible and unidentifiable. I tried to stroke, massage, even punch it away, yet The Pain came back stronger every time. I remember wishing to disappear like calm air inside the eye of the storm. But I couldn’t — the storm was me. The doctor couldn’t really do anything either, as he could not identify the source of my despair.
I always believe, one of the most beautiful things about being human is our capacity to imagine what it feels like to be another human: to walk their shoes, to mourn their loved ones’ death, to celebrate their first pay-checks, to blush at their first attempt at confessions. We don’t need to necessarily go through those exact same experiences to have real, intense feelings. That is why we cry at movies, fangirl fictional characters, or bond despite our differences. We empathize.
But we never can fully imagine what it feels like to go through another person’s pain. We can try, but we never will. It is one of the most isolating experiences on earth.
Turns out, scientists and doctors have long looked into the optimal scale of pain to help patients with effective drugs, with very little success.
The first time Eula Biss, a nonfiction writer, went to the doctor for help with her chronic, unidentifiable pain, she was asked to describe her pain on a scale from 1 (minor pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable). She said: “3!” The doctor did some tests, and gave her some aspirins.
The pain never went away, so she went back and asked for help again . The doctor asked her to describe the pain to scale, and again she said: “3!”
Frustrated, the doctor explained: “We couldn’t help you more, as aspirins are the strongest remedy to a 3.” Then he asked: “What is your 10?”
It was around the time a man had died being run over by a train. She thought: “if the worst pain imaginable (not just to me, but to anyone) is like dying behind a train track, a third of that is pretty comparable to what I feel.”
But when the doctor tried a different method and asked her this question instead “What would you give up in order to get rid of your pain?”, she said: “10 years of my life!”
I shuddered reading her story. But the funny thing is, it didn’t sound crazy. I would probably want to give up even more than 10 years too, when the Pain comes around again.
