Pain
Somehow, somewhere, there is actually an entire association of clinical technicians, doctors, psychologists, and other white-coated laboratory types who have dedicated themselves to the exploration of Pain. They span the globe, even: International Association for the Study of Pain. Their definition of the phenomena is "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage."
That "and" is of particular importance.
Their description, of course, does not mention the subject! Unpleasant sensory and emotional experience for who? Ah, a person! Yes, a person - poor, sad person. He doesn't even need to be really hurt, either; the associated feelings can be from actual or potential damage. For instance: the fall, the endless and jarring loss of footing, might be more painful than the actual landing - which would, quite concretely, break the actual bones, spill the blood, and gnash the skin. The brain's tissue, the delicate castle that houses feeling, is as fragile as can be and only a single vibration from one minuscule nerve to another is enough to collapse the entire system of limbs, veins and organs; all with a terrible and nauseating sense of dread. This preemptive convulsion might be more damaging as it happens first to the imagined self (he sees himself land before actually landing, and in that split second has simultaneous visions of equally horrid outcomes - it is this plurality that hurts so achingly) and then to the physical one, which is over in just as quick of a flash but seems to only have harmed the stupid outward extremities of the hapless person.
Generally speaking, it is this surprise of senses that is so disorienting - the pain, either acute or general, is a brand new experience that the person must deal with. I could stand on this leg a moment ago, and now it is detached. Or: This skin was fine a moment ago, and now is torn in places with blood seeping out - what to do, what to do? It is, or must be, a feeling quite similar to waking up on the inside of a dream - or, reversed, the same as falling asleep without even meaning to.
When does the pain come, though, before or after? In the half of a second that it takes to predict the multiple outcomes, all so dripping with perspiration and tears: Here, I could fall and land in such a way as to only break one arm, and that will only mean a day in the hospital and another couple months in a cast but on the whole it won't be too bad; In this instance, I fall and manage to only break a wrist, which only requires a splint; This one I fall and break the arm except that an oncoming car does not see the spill and manages to run my leg over in the process of trying to stop; Perhaps the hospital will have an outbreak of some nasty infection that I will no doubt catch, which will cause my immune system to shut down entirely as well as obstruct any and all digestive processes; And then, worst of all, is a headfirst landing which shatters all teeth and breaks the nose in such a way as to render it useless, thus I will lose one of my five senses entirely and though it is not blindness or deafness, life will be all the less sensual. It is true that once you can see the end of something, it's all as good as over. Why finish the movie when the outcome is so readily apparent and easily grasped by the forethought of the mighty mind? Agonized by the inevitable, but of course completely unsure which direction the path might arc towards. The person hopes for as little complication as possible with his pain.
It is even more odd, though, to ask someone else about their pain. How does it hurt? can almost seem insulting to the pained. We can define the type of fracture, the exact amount of blood lost down to the smallest cell, and even predict the approximate length of time needed before recovery. We can assume, and we can quantify with similar experience. We can never, ever, approach the actual experience, however. So subjective is pain that even nurses are suspicious of it: "Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does"; or more simply put: "It is all in your head."
Quite true, quite true.
Deciding where pain ends is an even trickier question. If the height of pain comes at the bisection of the imagined instance (awaiting the impact) and the actual experience (the impact itself), then there should be a downward slope that diminishes as time progresses. A simple little bell curve, all ringing with agony and reverberating with pangs of fracture. It does trickle off, yes, but then how does that memory feel? As one approaching the fall can foresee numerous and terrible outcomes, one recalling the fall must also be pained by all the different steps that could have prevented the whole dreadful ordeal in the first place. A series of if-only's that seem as endless and as torturesome as the procession of possibilities that lead up to the actual point of pain.
Yes - of course. A window! A window. A pane of glass! It is always glass.
Clouded as it is by the experience, the glass gets fogged and clear, foggy then clear again. It is just a normal window and nothing special, and now it is all mussed and out of focus and then it gets a bit easier to see through.
If pain stops when the pills run in, then pain starts when the pills run out.
*Photo: July 23, 2009. This day is quadruply important as it marks the 6 month anniversary of my own delicate hip's fracture. On top of that, the day also happened to be my first day back on my bicycle since the accident, which was a nice round coincidence to have happen. As time and luck would have it, this was also the day that my Percoset prescription ran out, after several hundred were needed during recovery (no more painkillers, but back on the bike - a decent trade, indeed.) Lastly, well, the fourth and final nail in the coffin of that day, so to speak: it marked the one year anniversary of the loss of my dearest and best friend. Pretending she was by my side again, I told her of the recent events and my stupid broken hip and my gripes about my body and my complaints about life and enjoyed the last of the medicine. That afternoon, after my little ceremont of mourning, and after an exceptionally sunny afternoon spent in a grassy park with good friends and a bit of champagne to celebrate, everything blended into a nice neutrality - past present future - and for a moment, a swimming and elongated moment, I felt reassurance by way of a soft and floating feeling which was the exact opposite of how I'd been feeling for half of the year, and I knew she was around somewhere with me. Pain as a loss, pain as a vacancy, but never pain of the past.
