Unlike many people, I have been intimately familiar with the reality of people living in constant pain pretty much since my teenage years.
The man I came to think of as my stepdad was in an auto racing accident in the mid-1960s which broke his spine and cause various kinds of ongoing pressure on his spinal cord meaning that he was basically in some kind of pain 24/7 365 for several decades. Sure, he took various pain meds from time to time to help him a little bit but all it did was take the edge off.
It never stopped him from living life, mind you... although he found certain limitations but he even pursued his fondness for playing golf and kept going until he reached almost the age of 90.
One of the things I remember best about him — or, rather, the pain he was always in — was the fact that he was often not able to lie down in bed and sleep and would end up getting his sleep in the form of one to two hour power naps in his recliner. He'd sit for a while, get up and shuffle around, sit back down and nap some more... and that was the best he could do.
You can tell when somebody is a little bit "gray" about the face because of the amount of pain that they're in, and you notice how it often casts a shadow over their ability to enjoy life. And let's keep in mind here that there is a considerable difference between enjoying life and simply surviving; he mostly was preoccupied with the latter.
At the time, I understood it and ampathized, but I didn't really get it.
Although I by no means live with the same kind of chronic situation that he did, I do experience back pain quite regularly and it can be significantly debilitating.
I think people who don't live with chronic pain perhaps have the greatest difficulty understanding the fact not that you're in pain but how exhausting it is to live with pain even when you're taking medications for it and are otherwise basically pretty functional in life.
Being in pain does indeed cast a shadow over everything else in your existence. In my case much of the time I just want to lay down and go to sleep because that is actually more comfortable than sitting up or standing up, but it wouldn't be much of a life if I just gave in to that.
I generally avoid taking medications unless it gets to a point of complete extreme where I just can't move without a little chemical help.
One of the things I've noticed over the years is that people seem very generous with the "solution" of always throwing drugs at every kind of discomfort they ever suffer from, so they are surprised (and a little dismayed) by the fact that I don't ingest large volumes of pharmaceuticals to take care of this condition.
My argument has always been that over time you build up some kind of resistance to pain meds, and unless I feel like I really need it avoid taking the drugs so they can be more effective on those occasions where I do really need it.
Which brings me to another point which is that we all have very different tolerances for living with discomfort. I think some people have "hedonistic" tendencies and they need feel good all the time and if they don't... they immediately take steps whenever they feel even the slightest bit bad. I, on the other hand, am perhaps almost the opposite of a hedonist in the sense that I just accept that pain and discomfort is a natural part of life and you should expect it and not freak out when it happens.
Of course it's probably wise not to go overboard in either direction and just find the balance that works for you.
I guess all of this is simply part of the joy of growing older, although my back issues have been with me for a good 30 years now, perhaps in part the result of being very tall and having a long back, and also the result of having done a lot of heavy lifting earlier on in my life.
On the other hand, the sporadic aches I get from two sets of wisdom teeth that still live below my gumline have little to do with my body wearing out, and a lot to do with my genereic inheritance. They are doing no actual harm, but the achiness I sometimes get for 4-5 days slows me down and hurts my ability to focus. But I live with it, rather than dealing with $8,000 of oral surgery I can't afford!
I'm grateful for this one body which is also quite sturdy most of the time and has served me well — and with a bit of luck perhaps we'll last for another 20 years or so!
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have an awesome weekend!
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Created at 2026.01.10 00:18 PST
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