Pain

"Pain is the patient's problem."

I can't tell you how many times that mantra has passed through my brain over the years. Whether it was gaining IV access, inserting a silver bullet for a temp in some poor soul, palpating, or even splinting, treatment hurts. 

That's one thing they don't tell you. Pain is necessary for healing. Whether its a surgery. Where you need to literally cut into a patient then cutaway what's harming you. Pierce tissue to stitch things back together. If you slip a joint out of socket and dislocate it, you have to reduce it. Trust me that hurts. Intubation can be traumatic. Resetting broken limbs. Heck just a blood draw or a simple shot, that's a needle piercing skin and possible veins. 

It all takes pain. It's uncomfortable. That's what healing takes. The price that's required. 

To facilitate those actions, medical personnel often have to cause pain. We have to make people hurt to heal them, or to reduce harm. That's the job. It can take a toll. The only thing that truly helps is knowing the aid you are rendering.

Now this phenomenon of suffering. Of the price being pain, this isn't just about medical experiences. It extends to other things. 

Physical fitness is not possible without pain and discomfort. The physical actions of developing strength involves the breaking down and rebuilding of muscle fibers. Building cardio endurance means straining lungs and feeling the discomfort of lactic acid buildup.

Learning a stringed instrument will cause pain. It tears apart fingers, joints cramp, muscles ache.

Now for many people even the act of growing is painful. Growing pains woke me so often in my middle school and high school years. It was an unavoidable aspect that caused great discomfort and a lack of rest for me and my mother. Let alone a lot of milk consumption. 

What about our minds? Our emotions? Why wouldn't that be the same? Especially when we look at a mind body connection.

If we're depressed, there's typically a reason. It may be our body and mind's way of telling us that we have a neurotransmitter or hormonal imbalance. It may be in result to a traumatic experience. 

PTSD, is the most immediate example of this. It's a literal response to trauma. 

I think one thing becomes abundantly true.

Pain is not the problem. Not one bit. 

Discomfort is not the problem. Not one bit.

There is a human inclination to run from pain. To hide. To recoil. Sometimes we need to face it instead. Because it's part of the human condition. It will always pass. And we're usually better off when it does. Because we must remember, the danger isn't the pain, it's whatever is causing it. If what causes the pain is to help us grow and isn't to harm us. 

Differentiating between danger and discomfort is an import aspect of truly dealing with pain. 

There's a difference between standing strong, pushing through , and masochism. The difference is purpose. Meaning. If you have to suffer through physical and emotional pain you can grow from it. You can channel it into something else. You can find the source of the pain and transcend it in a way.

This past year has been taxing. It's been exhausting. A large portion of people are at their literal wit's end. Mentally, emotionally, and physically done with pain. And not only their own.

That's the dirty little secret of pain. When someone you care about is in pain, it can be worse than experiencing it yourself. I began this blog post by talking about the mantra's and statements a lot of healthcare professionals use to get through the day. To get through the necessity of inflicting pain, and the inability to alleviate it. That desire to stop pain, it isn't just about us. It's about others. There is nothing worse than the helplessness of being unable to ease someone's pain. To not take away the pain of a wife, a child, a parent, a friend.

That's something that haunts me. Will haunt me. It's why I often take an apathetic and even at times potentially callous viewpoint. Because I don't know how to process not being able to alleviate the pain of others.

On a spiritual note I think that's the part of Christ's atonement that's so interesting. He suffered as no other man could suffer, he did it willingly, and even he wanted to shirk from the pain. He asked the Father if it be his will to take the cup from him. But that wasn't the will, so he went through the suffering in the Garden. The pain couldn't be taken from our Savior. Our Father had to watch his only begotten experience that. Christ experienced our pain, showed us the way to be at a minimum succored, at best healed. And even with outstretched arms, a gift of healing, an understanding of our pain, with all that, he still has to watch people go through pain. Pain he can't take away because they won't let him. That's a pain unto itself.

Now once again, we will face pain. We will face suffering. It's incumbent upon us to seek why we are in pain. To seek aid. For those of us with friends in pain we need to be there. For all of us we need to seek the Atonement. 

If we cannot be healed, if that isn't the will, we can at least be succored. We can be aided to bear our burden, to understand the source, to handle the suffering. In doing so, maybe just maybe we can understand our Father and our Savior that much better. We can understand each other that much better.  And we can grow.