CHRONIC PAIN IN TOO MANY PLACES

Chronic pain suffering comes in two conditions:

Either too much pain, or too much medication.

Both were discussed on C-SPAN.

I attended an author reading at Powell’s a few years back.

Sam Quinones wrote a book about oxy and black tar heroin back then; yesterday he talked about his new book about fentanyl and meth.

It sounded familiar.

My buddy had been was talking about addiction, focusing on how he was not a drug addict, that he could dip a toe into needle drugs without consequences.

He used to say he wasn’t a drunk, too, even though he tanked a bottle of rum a night.

We all have opinions, and those were his, right or wrong.

Like chronic pain, we all have levels of behavior to explain when it all comes apart.

Sam Quinones:

Heroin addicts can last thirty or forty years. It’s not a good life, but they’re not dead. There are no old fentanyl addicts on the street.

A Quick Painful Lesson

Chronic pain moves up the ladder when pain isn’t as big a problem as the side effects of addiction.

Let it go long enough and you’re taking meds to avoid withdrawal more than pain management.

It takes continual work, evolving, and innovation to stay ahead.

From the sound of fentanyl, the quick and painful lesson learned is death.

2: Conditioning

I learned some painful things dealing with cancer treatment, Takotsubo, and hip replacement surgery.

None of those are unusual for my demographic, for baby boomers.

I’ve heard it said, “Once you hit sixty that engine light comes on, so live it up until then.”

It’s just been my luck to get tagged by funky cancer, a weird heart issue, and a decade of bone grinding I thought I’d managed to conceal.

We who limp along are the last to know how we affect others. They notice.

Would anyone have noticed if I’d filled the oxy prescriptions, asked for a refill, gone off the rails and transitioned to black tar from Old Town?

3: Problem Solving Partners

If you’re married to a problem solver who has everything up to date, what’s next?

You. You’re next.

It’s you whether you have a problem, think you have a problem, or not.

If you’re a man reading this, you know the drill.

– How are you, honey?

– Fine.

– Are you sure?

– I’m still fine.

– Why are you rubbing your neck?

– I’m not rubbing my neck.

– What’s this?

Three chemo appointments, along with thirty five doses of oncology radiation later, I was right.

It was nothing and it’s still nothing.

If I hadn’t listened to my wife I would have been the same: Nothing. You can die from cancer.

So play along with the problem solvers while they do their work for a better life.

Problem Solving On The Big Stage

David Hogg talks the talk:

“If we can agree that killing children is unacceptable, then we need to either prevent people intent on killing from getting their hands on the guns they use or stop their intent to kill in the first place,” Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg said in an opinion piece published by Fox News on Friday. “No law is perfect, but if we focus on stopping the process of radicalization to violence, we can reduce gun deaths by half over the next decade. And we need to act now.”

David Hogg works to solve a problem, a big problem, for all of us.

Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Fla, is a leading member of the student-led organization March for Our Lives, which announced meetings with more than 50 lawmakers this week ahead of some 450 demonstrations planned across the world to demand gun reform legislation. 

2: The Small Stage Problems

The problem solving process applies to problems large and small.

I consider my wife a friend. Most of the time. She’s not so great when she starts asking why I don’t have any friends.

Her friend asked for help and my wife dove in. She offered the sort of support best friends give, but the other person still wondered who their best friend was.

When she offered my help I said yes because they were best friends. Or something.

School shootings are big, one of the biggest, in lowering confidence in the safety net.

No parent worth a damn can read or listen to mass killing in elementary schools without reflecting on their own experience, or their own kids.

How many parents and kids who haven’t suffered the aftermath of gun violence dodge the entire issue?

What is available for that chronic pain?

Death is not an optional treatment for chronic pain.

Neither is prison, but if the opioid epidemic throws enough light on prison reform for some drug offenses, it won’t be another Forgotten War.

If chronic pain, drug addiction, and prison haven’t touched you or anyone you know, it’s because no one’s talking.

Now is a good time to listen.