After I posted the piece on managing pain, I received an email asking for more information. Part of the question was if there was anything they could do further to help me. The simple answer is no. Unless there is some way to stimulate faster nerve growth or something equivalent, there is nothing further that medicine could do for me. They can provide me with what is called palliative care. The definition of palliative is relieving pain without dealing with the cause of the condition. Even that as I explained in the original post isn’t really possible either. The best that can be done is to reduce pain.
The other part of the question was how I feel about this? As the saying goes, it took me a while to come to terms there is no further help for me. There is much that I miss that I can no longer do, but it does not pay to dwell on those things. You and I both know it does not pay to live in our regrets – what if I had only done? What if I had only told him/her about my feelings? What if I had only stayed home that night? We could never live anywhere near a normal life if all we did was live in our regrets. When I realized that, I had to be thankful for the things that I can still do. One of them is what I am doing right now – writing. Yes, my world has contracted to a much smaller space, but I’m still in this world!
