I laugh every time I get a jolt of pain, which is fairly often, lately. I don’t want to hurt, which is very human, of course, but hurting is an unavoidable part of being alive. The older I get, the more wear and tear I accumulate, and the more things start to break down. So I laugh at the futility of wanting to feel no pain, the disconnect from reality.
Of course, there’s a chance I’ll recover from my current parade of defects: left wrist, upper back, both sacroiliac joints, right knee, right shoulder. They don’t all hurt continuously, and I have short periods during the day when nothing hurts at all. But then I lean over to get something out of the refrigerator and there’s a jolt in the right sacroiliac, or a jab in the right shoulder or the upper back—totally random, totally unpredictable.
Part of the reason I laugh is the unpredictability of it, the clear indication that, not only do I have no conscious control, I don’t even have conscious understanding of what’s going on in my body. My pitifully limited awareness is being toyed with by invisible forces, putting my delusions of invulnerability in stark relief once more.
When I was in my thirties, I injured the left wrist in a rollerskating accident. It must have been hilarious to watch, because when I first started to go down, it looked like I might recover, then I lost it again, almost recovered again, lost it again, and then crashed. Too bad it was long before the days of YouTube.
Since then, I’ve had lengthy periods when the wrist was perfectly normal, but then I’d make an awkward move and it would start hurting again; maybe for a week, maybe for three months. The same thing has been true of the sacroiliac joints, but I have found a few chiropractors through the years who could set them right with one or two sharp cracks. Unfortunately, chiropractic is a skill that not everyone who practices it can develop, and the best ones I’ve had have all retired. I keep looking, but either none of the ones I’ve tried in the last few years have had the knack, or the joints have deteriorated beyond recovery.
The upper back thing is fairly recent. It started a couple of weeks ago when I lifted the laundry basket, just like I’d lifted it dozens of times before. Then the right shoulder suddenly went gunny-bags when I got out of bed the other day, for no apparent reason. Each of these brought a laugh and the thought, “What next?!”
It’s possible that I could find the chiropractor of my dreams who would put me back together, but maybe not. Or maybe I could make my exercise program less strenuous; put less strain on the joints and the muscles that hold them in place, or find the right yoga stretch. Maybe they’ll come up with a stem cell therapy, or nanobots that could go in and rebuild my worn out parts. Or maybe not…
In any case, a sense of humor is recommended. For one thing, millions of people are in more pain than I am, and for me to get all dramatic about mine would indicate a level of egocentrism that I wouldn’t want to admit to. Furthermore, raging against the inevitable is not conducive to happiness.
Only The Red Ones Hurt
