Around 20 per cent of Australians live with chronic pain. It’s consistent with worldwide stats that indicate one in five people suffer from chronic pain (CP) with prevalence increasing with age. I woke at 1am and started thinking about this. And then I woke again at 1.30am and 2am and then I lay there until after 3am. I might have drifted but woke at about 4.30am to roll over. I am in pain. Excruciating, constant and unrelenting pain. Pain that I’ve had now for a few months. Pain that lives in my body like a toothache. A silent electric throb in one side of my body.
And yes, it’s age related. It’s bursitis and a frozen shoulder, and I’m getting treatment.
Fortunately my condition isn’t lifelong, it should resolve itself in 18 months.
That’s what the radiographer told me after an ultrasound. I was like, ‘Wow, 18 months! How do people live like this?’.
It hurts to sleep. There is no comfortable position. I toss all night looking for some way of holding my body so that I can’t feel the ache. The longer I lay in bed the more painful it gets. My friends say ‘You need to rest’, but rest hurts the most. I no longer need an alarm to wake. I’ve been awake all night.
It hurts to wash my hair. It hurts to dry my hair. It hurts to get dressed. I struggle to pull up my jeans; I can’t get my coat off without assistance. It’s humiliating to be in public and have to ask strangers to help me. I am not used to being in pain and being limited by what I can do. It still catches me by surprise.
When I was in Sydney recently for work I realised the only dress I had packed had a zip up the back, which I could normally manage. I had to ask the poor young man at reception to do me up. He awkwardly obliged. I’m like, fuck, is this what it feels like to be old? Wandering the streets with your clothes unzipped? Hoping for the kindness of strangers?
And I am lucky. My condition will eventually pass. But it’s depressing. I feel myself slipping into a sad space. Apart from what my physio gives me I can’t exercise, I can’t play tennis, I can’t do yoga, I can’t ride a horse, I can’t abseil, I can’t swing on the trapeze. Of course most of those things I never did anyway, but the pain makes me sulk about my loss. Pain doesn’t bring out the best me. My pain scale hovers between a two and a six. Right now it’s about two. When I finally got out of bed it had been at six since midnight.
I don’t take painkillers. Opiates stop working after six weeks, then you have to up the dose. It can end up making pain worse. My husband told me this because coincidentally he’s writing a Masters on CP. It’s a shame, because I was quite looking forward to 18 months on opiates, but what’s the point? I couldn’t be bothered. I’d rather suffer. After all, I have some Denco rub and a hot water bottle. Heat; the quiet salvation of the aged. People in chronic pain are easy to identify – they smell like menthol and rubber.
I have tried medicinal cannabis. It does help quite a lot, but I don’t want to lose my license. The drug-driving laws mean the only useful pain relief for me can’t be used without a huge risk. Ironically if I was using opiates I’d be fine, but if I’d taken medicinal cannabis it’s detectable for up to 10 days – so if got swabbed I could lose my license. That’s a whole other sort of pain.
But as someone who has never been in constant pain like this before I suddenly realised how 20 per cent of the population feels all the time. I realise that pain is boring. That it isolates people. It kills joy. And that people in pain very often stop saying ‘I am in pain’ because, in the end, no one takes any notice. You sound like a whinger. Well, I’m having ‘lived experience’ right now, and to that one-in- five out there who suffer in silence, I have to say – how do you do this? You really are amazing; because it’s hard and it’s relentless.
Pain is subjective and invisible. Other people can’t see it. They dismiss the experience of people with CP. I realise I certainly did. I’m sorry I never really considered what your life was like.
There are so many inspirational quotes about pain. If you know someone in pain, don’t make it worse with a cliché.
There is a quote that says ‘Sometimes you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow and lose in order to gain, because life’s great lessons are learned through pain.’
What a load of horseshit. That’s what privileged people tell the suffering so they can go back to being privileged while the rest of us are busy in our silent agony becoming better people.
Fuck that. Just change the law.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
