I now think back to the past three years and see that some of the things that took place happened for a reason. What is the saying, “Hindsight is 20/20.” Often, when events are unfolding before us we get caught up in the moment, the fire that is now being held under our feet, or the slow decay of all things rational. That is often what emotionally tragic feelings can do to you.
I remember after my friend, David, killed himself I started to feel physical pain. My entire body was tight and my muscles would not release no matter what I tried. I saw an acupressurist and he told me, “You have emotional trauma.” I didn’t consider this at the time because I was too busy asking the question “why?” It poured out of me, “Why did my friend kill himself? What could I have done to save him?” Those questions not only impacted my mind and the emotional pain that comes with guilt and loss, but it made all of the muscles and joints in my body feel like I had been in the knock down, drag out fight with ten people. It took a long time, years even, to understand what his tragic death did to my body. I walked around feeling injured even though I wasn’t.
It took me six years to finally realize that there was nothing I could have done to have helped David further. It seemed as that guilt lifted, another entered in the form of my sister, Charlotte’s death. She died suddenly, and once again my muscles tightened and I felt physical pain. I ran a trail marathon shortly after she died. I wanted more pain. A few months later, an old friend, Richard, was shot by the police. With his death, I started looking back at old messages we had sent to one another looking for clues as to his failing mental health. My muscles did not release and I walked around in some pain, feeling the sting of old blisters from shingles that attacked me a year prior. It always amazes me that to this day, the scars from shingles warn me when I am becoming stressed. I have come to reframe the pain from shingles as a blessing because it is now my stress thermometer, telling me to back off.
Something similar, but far more severe, happened when my mom told me she had cancer. I knew we were in for a long ride, sort of speak. She said, “I’m going to fight this thing,” and that’s when I braced myself for everything to come. However, no one can prepare themselves to watch their own mother wither away, absorbing a great deal of pain, so great that she had to take morphine and oxy and everything else under the sun to try to dull the attack on her bones.
For over two years, there was a slow decay in her muscles and bones, where eventually she was wearing mostly thin skinned wrinkled flesh. There were days or weeks where chemotherapy took its toll on her energy, leaving a constant nauseous feeling in her stomach, making her not want to eat and so the muscle and fat continued to wear away. Other times, she would try to mask the immense pain that comes with Multiple Myeloma but I’d see it in her face with the winces and muffled moans. I would tell her, “Mom, you can’t hide it, so just let it out.” She would reply, “Honey, if I did that I’d scare all the neighbors with my roar.”
Watching her in pain started my experience with a new kind of pain. More intense and deep. I expected the emotional pain but the physical took me by surprise. Looking back, I now see why the doctors were so perplexed at my first emergency room visit, and even more so with the second one. That was April of 2022, when I woke up at one in the morning with immense pain down my right hip and leg. The doctors examined me and said, “It might be nerves, or with as active as you are, it might be muscle tension.” I was placed on Gabepenton and told to monitor it. I saw my personal doctor the next day. He gave me muscle relaxers but was still perplexed as to the actual cause. That was Wednesday of that week. Friday night I found myself on my knees, folded over my couch, searching for a comfortable position to relieve the pain, and while in that position, praying. I rarely pray for myself. It’s always for others, but I was becoming desperate, so I asked God for some relief. I went to the ER again, my blood pressure 190-110, so they gave me a shot in my leg to relax me, a shot of some other drug, and then sent me home with hydrocodone. I do not remember much after this point, except that I gave an interview on Saturday morning to a former student, something I felt obligated to do, but I do not recall any of the information I gave him. The pain subsided with the heavy drugs and my mind drifted into a very dark place. A place I have stepped a single foot into a couple of times, but not a whole leg. Sunday morning I dreamed that my sister had come to take me to heaven with her. I don’t recall anything else. Monday morning I drove home from my chiropractor and talked to my brother and mom on the phone before rolling into the garage, closing the door behind me, and leaving my truck running. The gas filled up as I sat there, head on the steering wheel. Fortunately, something came over me to turn off the key and wave the exhaust from my face and walk into my house. I sat on my couch, next to my dogs, and just stared. That’s when I stopped taking the meds that I was given, realizing that I did not want to die. It is when I realized that doctors need to be careful giving people with depression opioids. It’s also when I realized I would need to use alternative methods for figuring out my pain. I’m not sure if God was just too busy with more important things than to answer my prayer, or on the other hand, maybe it was answered.
My journey with pain began. I was going to experience it with my mom, mind you it was just a fraction of what she had, but it was bad enough to try to conceal our discomfort around one another. I remember one time sitting at her kitchen table talking and simultaneously I flinched when it felt like a sharp knife stabbed my leg, and she grimaced when a sharp pain was delivered to her spine. Boy did we laugh at that. It’s interesting, and somewhat healing, to laugh at pain with someone who understands. I consider myself to have a high pain tolerance but there were moments when I had to just lay and breathe, trying to transport my mind to a place where I could simply function.
I started to search for answers. The doctors were little help with the actual cause and continued to want to give me medication. I refused to take anything except Tylenol or Ibuprofen, but I rarely took that because I didn’t want to develop other issues. My chiropractor, Reiki specialist, and acupuncturist were the most helpful, but like with anything else in life, I had to figure my own problem out and keep pushing forward. I had to do the work.
Throughout this process my wife, who had to witness it all, and my chiropractor eventually told me, “I think a lot of your pain has to do with your mom.” My therapist confirmed this. Looking back, I think I was so emotionally taxed by everything and knowing what the end result would be, that I did not realize how physically taxing the process of her dying was on my body. I exercised often. Practiced yoga, meditated, took ice baths and cold showers, and on and on, but the pain held tight to my body not releasing. Pain had become my new norm during this time and it felt daunting. I often thought, “Can I keep doing this? Do I want to?” However, giving up, giving in, was not an option. I had too much love near me, so I accepted my suffering and took on the challenge with much determination and decided I would find a solution. The doctors and physical therapists could not, but I would.
I share this now because I know that many of you either have, are currently, or will experience something similar. You will witness someone you love dearly fade away, pain attacking them little by little. Looking back, I wonder if her death or witnessing her death was the toughest. I am not sure there is an answer to that.
Here are some of the pain symptoms that I experienced since April, 2022. Some came and went and others stayed the course, and still linger a little. I will talk more about that and some things I discovered and how I continue to heal. For now, here is my pain journey. As I mentioned, my right hip and leg had shooting, constant pain. I told the ER it was a nine or ten on their scale. The pain eventually went to my left hip and leg and stayed there, hindering my ability to walk without a slight limp. I tried to cover my limp up, and I did, but it was painful to walk. Eventually, the pain started to crush my lower back. It was like a vice squeezing from the front of my hips and wrapped around until it gripped my lower back and never let go. This eventually, after getting rid of my doctor and seeking another one, and advocating for myself, led to a back MRI. It showed a herniated disc. I thought, “This is it. I have the answer I was looking for. I can now heal.” My chiropractor said I did not have typical herniated disc symptoms but encouraged me to get the recommended spinal epidural. I received the shot from a back specialist and it did not help. I was sent in for another shot, something that was supposed to ease the muscle tension, and that did not help. I contacted the spinal doctor to find out the next steps and they had none. “You will need to try to give it time to heal.” When you are in a great deal of pain, this is not what you want to hear, especially from a pain specialist. Even though I had support, when people say, “We can no longer help you,” which were the exact words in the message I was sent, it makes you feel very alone. Pain is a lonely journey. I wish health professionals would understand this for patients that are dealing with pain because the reality is, and this is the hard truth, that many people with chronic pain start to question their quality of life. They then question if they should keep living. That is why it is important for all health care practitioners to not tell someone, “We can no longer help you.” It’s a dangerous attitude. Instead, help the patient search for answers and understand instead of just offering medication to mask the symptoms. That does not get to the core of the actual problem.
Before I continue with my journey, during this time when I was seeing my mom, I would see how much pain she was in and feel guilty. Here she was with bone cancer eating away at her spine and I was worried about my pain. My pain! The “my” in that sentence made me look in the mirror more than once and say some pretty intense, disparaging remarks. However, pain was impacting my life a great deal. More on that later.
Around this time, I was starting to have pain in my right foot. A bump came out of the side of my foot and it hurt to walk. I eventually was sent to a podiatrist. He said I had peroneal tendonitis. “Okay, well at least I had a diagnosis.” However, as I went back to see him a month later, he too was a little perplexed that I was not healing. He said, “Come back in one month.” I came back another month and he was still perplexed and fitted me with an insert for my shoes. It still hurt after another month and the bump was still there, so I just canceled my appointment. I was tired of having no real action month after month. Eventually, the pain moved to my other foot and up the tendon on the outside of my shin. Through my own research, what I found was that the tendons were becoming more and more tight, which could cause the issues I was having.
Then, I changed jobs, looking for something different, less stressful, and considered a sabbatical from education. I needed something new. I found that in my new role but the pain persisted. It did not go away. In fact, the pain stood firm everywhere I mentioned but then started in my jaw and neck. It was spreading and moving on any given day. I would be walking around at work and my jaw was so tight that I felt like I struggled to talk to people. It seemed like I struggled to pronounce my words. That scared me and then my health anxiety came in like a storm and made all of my pain worse. I started to get a blood test to rule out any diseases. I had an autoimmune test that came back negative. This also came with a couple of severe panic attacks, one I ended up in the ER with. There were days that I would wake up and all the way from my neck and jaw, to my hips, legs, and feet were all in a great deal of pain. I struggled to see what was happening to me. I struggled because I was already grieving for my mom and it was taking its toll on my mind and body. Grief, as I have found once again, will make your mind a fog. One article I read said that it can even mask symptoms of dementia. I noticed this because I was forgetting things that were told to me, or forgot that I had conversations with people. I am sure I annoyed some people during this time, but this is why I always say, “You never know what someone is going through, so be emphatic and kind.”
This was my day-to-today existence and then in January, 2024, I had a great deal of pain come to my left knee. I started to limp daily and an MRI showed that I had a torn meniscus. Looking for the reason for all of the pain I mentioned, I naively and anxiously asked my surgeon, “Do you think this could have been causing my pain all along?” Of course a torn meniscus was not causing my jaw to tighten or my neck to hurt. It was not causing the daily headaches and my right hip and thigh to hurt. It was not causing the issues in my feet, and it did not cause the problems in my lower back. However, the knee seemed to be the issue for my limping and was causing a great deal of pain. The surgery went well and showed a badly torn meniscus. This, I found, was the only pain not related to my mom’s dying or death. A few liked to say to me, “Well, you are no spring chicken anymore.” That’s another effect of grieving and pain, your sense of humor becomes less. The people who liked to comment on my age because of a meniscus tear, even though there are literally thousands upon thousands of teenagers with meniscus tears, had no idea how much pain my entire body was in. I tried my best to smile at the comments but we should all avoid making fun of others' pain. As I said, it can be daunting and you don’t know how close to the edge that person might be. Be compassionate!
Through all of this, the night my mom died, August 31st, 2023, I went into the grass outside of her room at Hospice and let out a yell. I screamed at the moon and heavens and I think I left my body for a moment. I lost sanity for however long I bellowed and lay there smashing my fist into the ground. I pounded the earth as if I could punch a hole to its core.
She has almost been gone a year. In reflection, looking back on the time that I witnessed her dying, I realized that most of my pain came from grieving. It came from a son watching his mother sort through a great deal of discomfort and agony, and attempt to cope with and beat it. It came from watching her body fail her but not her mind, so she fought hard. Her fighting helped her live longer but it also made her suffer for a longer duration. As someone who has tried to protect her for most of my life, I had no control over what was happening to her. With that, I had little control over what was happening to me.
I discovered a few things I want to share. Things that did help and maybe they will help you. I know many readers are also suffering. Be mindful that grief starts the moment that you hear someone is dying. The anticipation of losing them settles deep into your soul, and for me, tightened my entire body up like a ball of twine. The reason the epidural did not work for my herniated disc is most likely because that injury was very old. Many disc issues do not cause problems. Certainly, it may get aggravated, and probably has most of my life because I have had lower back pain since I was a child. It could have happened lifting weights, a mountain bike crash, in the military, or a shovel across the back from an enraged father.
During my mom’s two years of suffering, I found that I needed to focus on yoga, strength exercises, and hiking. Being in the woods calmed my body and mind more than anything and gave me temporary relief. Any relief was welcome, even if it was only for a couple of hours. As always, writing helped but I also had a great amount of guilt with my own writing. What I mean is on April 12, 2022, my publisher released my second novel and I hardly had the want or energy to bring awareness to it or promote it. I neglected my two novels and therefore neglected my passion. Yet, my priorities were different at the time. My mental focus turned towards my mom.
I also became more focused on my nutrition. I always have been but I knew that my body was suffering so I had to be even more diligent on putting whole foods into my system. During this time, I also discovered a key muscle in our bodies that not a lot of people, including doctors, are not familiar with. The psoas. I found out that my psoas muscle on both sides of my body was extremely tight. With that, it was causing pain in my hips, legs, and lower back. I learned that the psoas is a muscle where we carry emotion. Look it up, study it, and then tend to it. Work on your psoas before it gives you problems. With this new information about the psoas, I started my education on the body. I found a man on YouTube who is with a company called Precision Movement. I put together a group of exercises from his videos and some things I bought from his website and started to practice them diligently. The exercises addressed the psoas but also many muscles that we neglect and hinder our bodies with being in balance. It’s those muscles that don’t show off your physique but keep it operating well and functioning. My point is, don’t let the pain control you, take control of it and go looking for things that help. It will take work, commitment, and discipline, but you can get your life back. I felt like I was losing mine for almost three years. It feels good to gain some control back in my body.
The pain that I had to endure has subsided, not everything, but much of it. I look back now and realize how much my body was in turmoil. I now grieve for my mom’s death but I think watching her suffer, being totally helpless to offer her relief, took a great toll on me. I now need to navigate the pain of loss. That too can, and has, caused some pain, but most of it is now emotional.
I believe that I did the best I could along the way, but there are some things that I lost and some I gained. I struggled to want to see friends or family. I was in so much pain that I was doing everything I could just to deal with that, and trying to hide it when I was with people took its own toll. It takes a great amount of energy to try to act “normal.” I faked it at work, in front of students and coworkers, and that drained me of all of my energy. There were days that I came home and literally walked to my bed and collapsed, laying there breathing.
Again, I share this in order to help. It is like anything else I have shared with my experience in grieving. I know that I was loved and that is why I had so much pain. A couple of months ago, when I actually felt more of the pain release from my body, I said aloud, “Well mom, I suffered with you. You deserve that much.”
Now that I can move a little more swiftly again, though still a little stiff and always working on that tricky psoas muscle, I realize how emotional turmoil can turn into physical turmoil quickly. However, I also realize how resilient I am. I can handle a lot. I can take the tough days and push through and this is good knowledge to have because there will be more tough days in my life. There will be more in all of ours. It is why resilience is key to living a good life.
I was forced to become a scholar of pain. I am a professor of my own body and mind and it has made me stronger. That is something that I am grateful for.
My pain and the loss of my mother has changed me. I am in a place of transition, of rebirth in many ways. I can feel it. I am uncertain exactly what that means at this time, but it’s lingering close. It gives me anxiety at times, and it can also feel lonely because I realize with change and growth you often have to leave others behind. My circle has gotten smaller with each passing year. It is not something I am proud or happy about, but it is a reality of this time in my life. Perhaps, and I say this with hope, that my circle may grow again one day. I have become cautious who I allow close to me. Maybe a better way to put it is I am cautious of the type of energy I allow around me.
Discovering new paths and being open to exploration and mindful of what may present itself, leads to a revitalization and self-awareness that brings with it the ability to take a full breath of fresh air. That’s something that I have not been able to do in quite a while. My chest has been compressed, as if it is difficult to rise with shrunken lungs. The reality of this heaviness is that I hold the people I love close, and for a long time it was the weight of my mother dying, and I now it is the fear of losing someone else. I know it will happen one day, and when the pain enters my body I will now be more aware.
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