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Home / Thoughts / Not cured after all

Not cured after all

Written by Sean on Wednesday, June 7, 2006

I’m quite bummed out, really. I “survived”, mostly unscathed, a fall that could have made me paraplegic. It didn’t. All my life I’d had this hope, in the back of my mind, that there was a chance for me to become what I needed to be. But this accident shows me that this is not so.

Am I destined to remain able bodied for the rest of my life? Because if that’s the case, I don’t know that I can bear it. Pain… There’s pain, and then there’s pain… Emotional pain vs. Physical pain. One’s not better nor worse than the other, just more visible is all. In fact, I suspect that emotional pain might just be worse, because most people looking at you don’t see it. Emotional pain is easy to dismiss (for others, not for the person living it). “Get a grip”, “chill, take a pill”, “it’s all in your head”, “if you really wanted to, you’d get over it”. I’ve heard all those statements, and more, all along the same lines. But you know what? It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way any more than a para isn’t walking because she doesn’t want it bad enough.

And no, I’ve not changed my mind. I’m not cured. I’ve not “seen the light”. I’m still who and what I am, more’s the pity. Falling off a ladder hasn’t magically erased 30++ years of being.

While I was still in the Emergency Department, my partner said to me that "those who do this on purpose are cracked in the head especially knowing the pain involved” . And yes, it hurts "a fair bit" (thank you drugs). but it is tangible pain, it is "real".

I’m a maelstrom of mixed emotions. I was in pain (still am, but nowhere near what it was then). I don’t particularly like pain. I especially don’t like seeing my partner suffering because she’s seeing me in pain. If I could avoid this kind of pain, I would. But then, if a permanent spinal cord injury accompanied the pain, or even caused more of the same, I’d go with it.

I’ve often been told that I didn’t know what I was talking about. They’ve told me (the proverbial “they”) that if I knew what nerve pain was like, I wouldn’t want to be a para. Which is a fair enough statement. And I’m sure I don’t know what it’s like still, but I *do* know what nerve pain is like. After a week of intense pins and needles in one foot, where the merest brush of a blanket against my toes sends shooting pains all up my leg, I probably have as good an idea as anything.

And no, I’ve not changed my mind. I’m not cured. I’ve not “seen the light”. I’m still who and what I am, more’s the pity. Falling off a ladder hasn’t magically erased 30++ years of being. Had I become a para, I suspect it wouldn’t have magically made me better either, I’ve often said that I didn’t think that injury was a cure. But it’s most certainly a barrier to going forward. And so, I find myself still wanting it. To have the transabled part of me gone would be like excising an integral part of my Self. What would be left afterwards would not be the me you know and there would be no guarantee you would like this other me. Nothing to say I would be happier.

Yes, I’m in pain. So what?

My back pain is sneaky. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most intense pain, my back hovers at a 2, that’s chicken shit. It was constantly near 8 or 9 for the first few days. If I move or try to lift something, it shoots up to about 5, again, probably not so bad in the greatest scheme of things. If I don’t move for about 10-15 minutes, it goes up to 3, 4, sometimes 5. So I can’t sit still, but I can’t move around… One might say “intense discomfort” rather than pain. Yeah yeah…

The pain in my foot is weird. Pins and needles, non-stop. You know, like when you have an arm or a leg fall asleep and it wakes up? Well, like that, but more intense, and NON STOP!!!!!!!! The moment something brushes against my foot, or I put weight on it, it flares up. Doctors say it’ll take 6 to 12 weeks getting better. I wouldn’t mind that so much, if it accompanied paraplegia. It doesn’t. I’m pissed off.

But what’s worse is my emotional/mental state. I’m so thoroughly bummed out. If this didn’t work, nothing will. I’ve been living with the faint hope, in the back of my mind, that someday, somehow, I’d end up a para. But now I know, if that kind of fall didn’t work, nothing will. Someone just suggested to me that "there’s always surgery", but no surgeon will perform that kind of surgery. Or if there are surgeons that would do it, I am unable to find them, and then, I suspect they’d be working out of insalubrious conditions, or might steal a kidney in the process, or some such. So… No hope left.

None.

None, whatsoever.

And without that faint hope in the back of my mind, I really don’t know that there’s any point in continuing. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t try and kill myself. I’ll go through the motions. Go to bed, wake up, go to work, do this, do that, but I’m left with nothing at all, deflated to the core.

So, despite knowing the impact this last week had on my partner, I still want, need, to be a para. And were there a relatively safe way to see it happen, I would go for it. This is of course a very selfish way of thinking. I know that. Perhaps I’m doing some self-justification here, but I’m thinking that I’m not better to anyone in the mental state I’m in anyway. My gift to my partner could be to be happy and confident and well in my own skin, which I’m not. Can she not understand that physical pain is really not such a huge thing to worry about? If mental anguish could be seen as clearly as back pain is, I think she’d really be constantly worried. As it is, it’s unseen, pervasive in the way it does its damage.

I have come so close this week to something I have wanted for ages. Close yet miles away. The pain and anguish should make me change my mind, but no. In fact the only thing slowing me down is to see how it distresses her. But it is just a slowing down.

She told me that her first reaction upon coming home and seeing my chair in the lobby was to take it outside and set fire to it. I think she is coming to resent this transabledness of mine, particularly having it come so close to reality. I wonder if this fall of mine made her think I suddenly would "see the light" and stop feeling the way I do?

She told me that I had had the “dress rehearsal”, that that was it. No need to go further. Did she mean to ask me indirectly if I did it to myself? I don’t know. "Accidents happen" as I said a nurse say loudly while in A&E (Accidents & Emergency, ER to you yanks)

In fact, I am really tired of her saying that "I’m fucked in the head". I may be, but enough of that. I understand and accept she has issues with it, but it is me, warts and all. This "near miss" did not make me change, it hasn’t erased 30+ years of my being. But I’ve said that already, I’m rambling.

Nothing, short of an SCI, is ever likely to do cure me at this point.