It Could Be Worse

Wednesday is shot day.

I have this thing called Ankylosing Spondylitis. A really big name for a disease that basically means Ouch Dammit!

Since I have no desire to conduct a Health Ed class, I'll just say that diseases like AS and RA (Rheumatoid Arthritis) are autoimmune diseases that essentially cause your body to mistakenly attack itself. They are diseases that think they are being helpful. And like the guest who tries to be helpful by putting your dishes away after dinner, it causes no end of problems in spite of its good intentions.

So the doctors have put me on a drug called Enbrel, which I jab into my leg on a weekly basis. And it hurts. Now I know that with any luck this drug will help me in the long run, reducing the pain and fatigue that I experience on a daily basis, but still - that shot Hurts!

I suppose that it’s not really just those couple of minutes of actual pain when that needle pierces the skin that makes me dread shot day. I think that it’s also what the shot represents. This battle in my body that I’ve been fighting since I was a child. I guess that sometimes, I’m just very weary of the struggle and I resent the hell out of that shot because sometimes, it just doesn’t seem fair.

And heaven forbid that I should complain about it! Because then I get an earful about how lucky I am that it's only once a week, that I could be diabetic and need shots all the time, that I could be dying of cancer, that I could need dialysis, that I could - that I could - that I could.

Why is it that we feel the need to belittle our own experiences?

From the time that we are small children we are taught that our experiences, our feelings, the perceived reality of our OWN lives, has no value. Shut up and eat your food, no one cares if you hate brussel sprouts because there are starving children in Ethiopia who are suffering. And by all that’s good you better stop crying or you'll get something to really cry about!

As we struggle through life and encounter the pitfalls and stumbling blocks that happen to all of us, we are told that things could be worse. Why just look at that person who lost their job, or leg or home or child. Our troubles are nothing compared to that.

So we go through life negating our own suffering.

And I can't help but wonder, if we never allow ourselves to experience our own pain, how can we then understand the pain of another and learn compassion? Maybe it is only by standing in our own pain that we can finally move beyond ourselves and into the realm of kindness and understanding. Maybe pain, both mental and physical, exists to help us learn acceptance and tolerance of the frailty that is within us all. Maybe as pain carves itself into our own souls, it creates within us the desire and the need to ease the suffering of others.

Wednesday is shot day. So I’m going to feel sorry for myself. Just for a minute or two. For the sake of mankind, you understand.