All I want for Christmas is anti-inflammatories

It's Christmas morning. My elderly father-in- law and I are seated in the lounge and have been let off kitchen duty. Him due to stuffed kees thanks to a youth spent playing rugby for Natal and me with a spasming back because I'm 40 and I got out of bed incorrectly last night.

I've been eying his zimmer frame covertly all morning. Right now that piece of machinery would be right up my shuffling alley. For a newly injured invalid I've started to check out the toilet rails in my in-laws home much like I would normally check out the peppermint crisp tart that my mother-in-law makes. 

It has been a rough week injury wise. It's like my body heard the repeated chorus of 'happy birthday' at my various soirees and said, 'Oh so you're 40 now? Kiff, hold my beer.' 

This week I've already had injections into my shoulder to stem the pain of what appears to be a rotator cuff injury, possibly a tear. As a result of that the referred spasm in my neck had me weeping into a cup of tea. And now I've done something incapaciting to my lower back and the thought of spending Christmas in casualty on pain killers is sounding pretty tempting. 

There has been some joy in farming out the various responsibilities I had been given for Christmas lunch but short term pleasure is leading to long term pain. This back of mine is a stuff up and I can't see it improving any time soon. And its going to result in me getting fatter and less fit and that's not the way I planned on rolling into 2024. But it would appear that I may literally be rolling...

One thing about not having to peel 1.6 billion potatoes is one does get to thinking. And I have been suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of how many people I love who are living in chronic pain. Deep, never ending, all your life pain. Pain from cancer, and arthritis, and gout, and autoimmune diseases, and botched neck surgeries, and slipped disks, and grief, and depression, and anxiety and and and. 

Pain is crap because you have to plan your life around it. It becomes a thing you pack - toiletries, check. Car keys, check. Clean pair of clothes, check. Passport, check. Pain, check. If you are in chronic pain you are forced to weave your existence around discomfort. It affects how you get into a car, how long you are able to stand for, what food you eat, what conversations you have and with whom, the position you sleep in, how you pee, how you hold a pen. You constantly need to be planning ahead so as to alleviate any unnecessary pain. And sometimes that is just not possible because sometime compensating for pain leads to a new type of pain. It's all rather terrible. 

And I've only been doing it for a week.

There's no pithy summary to the end of this blog just as there is no pithy end to chronic pain. But I would suggest that for those of us who do not live with this as our current reality one thing we can bank on is that we will in time. When a friend says she didn't sleep, again, because the pain in her leg kept her awake I'm going to, rather than my usual eye roll because 'she's complaining again', try to imagine a sleepless night with no relief. And when someone I love falls back into another deep, strangling depression I need to try and remember how I felt when that chokehold was briefly on me. And when people say that they can no longer go on with whatever is making their lives a misery I need to know that no words will ever truly articulate their desperation. 

I also can never say, 'I know how you feel', because I don't. What I can say is that you are brave because you have no choice. That the way you respond to pain shows far more about your beauty as a human than the way you respond to pleasure. I want you to know that I'm sorry and that I love you and that I pray there are moments of respite and hope. Most of all I want you to know that, even if I never understand your particular pain, you are not alone.