Illustration by Alex Siklos
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No one warned me in my younger years that I might end up with the most loathsome companion at age 70: pain. We’re on a first-name basis. It’s a puppet master with intimate knowledge of my body – more than the most attentive lover – intuitively knowing which strings to pull to push me beyond what I once believed was physically and mentally possible.
Pain: such a small word for such a powerful sensation in my back. It gnaws at me, bit by bit, sorrow by sorrow. Despite being spurned, it remains an unwelcome bedfellow, refusing to hush and vacate the premises – an equal-opportunity menace that indiscriminately chooses its next victim. Healthy dietary changes, long walks, pumping iron, acupuncture, dextrose injections, cortisone injections, physiotherapy, yoga, painkillers or abstaining from alcohol do little to shield me from this force or change my trajectory. I’ve tried almost every treatment to ease my collapsed vertebrae that rub together bone on bone.
I did not anticipate suffering to visit me on life’s homestretch; perhaps not fully appreciating what I had when I had it. I am left with a feeling of saudade, a Portuguese word denoting a sense of longing, melancholy or nostalgia for what once was. I look at others from the over-70 crowd shuffling along the sidewalk, moving robotically, and I see a reflection of myself.
Celebrating my senior milestones have shown me that life is glorious
My pain journey is meandering some days. This is mildly encouraging, as it means I have some good interspersed with the bad. However, I must admit that when my mood is low and my defences are down, there are moments when I focus solely on the negative.
Pain embodies my worst fear. It chases me in my dreams, a race I shall never win. Hellish. Hellacious. Hellbent. And as morning makes itself known, it greets me with a 200-pound anvil parked on my chest before I even open my eyes.
If you’re my age and experience no discomfort whatsoever, consider yourself lucky to have won the lottery of life. Bask in your good fortune like a cat sprawled in the afternoon sun. Do a pirouette. Eat the ice cream.
I have found there are two types of people in life: those eager to share their ailments and the stoics who are not. The most one can get from the almost-inexpressive ones is a hint of a grimace on their faces when they think no one is watching. On the other hand, the vocal members of the first group make me feel like a prisoner; even people in the queue at the bank delight in telling me about their crumbling backs. I never truly understood what it meant to be a captive audience until I was forced to listen to someone update me on their health status. (The irony that I am doing just that to Globe and Mail readers has not escaped me.)
The talkative ones want to share stories about their recent colonoscopy and the “director’s cut” of the large intestine video they watched from a front-row seat, strung out on drugs. Delivering my own “organ recital” is the best antidote to these ailment stories. After less than a minute of listening to my infirmities, eyes gloss over and the person shifts their focus to the next hapless victim.
I’m 100, but I’ve given up telling people my age because of their reaction
Immediately after my diagnosis of osteoarthritis, the only effort I made to improve my situation was wishing for a markedly different reality; I’d been guilty in the past of being snowed under by life rather than digging myself out. It would be weeks before I began trying in earnest to prevent my illness from worsening, moving me from victimhood to proactiveness, even though my endeavours resulted in only a slight improvement. I will never be this age again, so today is the best day of the rest of my life, at least with respect to this would-be spirit-breaker. Although my affliction is chronic and progressive, I refuse to let my current suffering jeopardize my happiness today or in the future.
One day, I was a fit 65-year-old, and it seemed that only a short while later, I was no longer healthy. Initially, I repeatedly asked myself, “Why me?” But eventually, as I gradually grew to accept my new normal, I began to ask, “Why not me?”
Happiness is attainable even while living with a chronic illness and, dare I say, pain. Now, in my third and final act, I practice gratitude and radical acceptance, which help me embrace what I had previously been unprepared to accept. I strive to recreate the peace of mind I experience when walking in a snowstorm, bundled up, feeling free from harm, savouring the stillness of the soul.
Pain, pain, go away. Don’t come back another day.
Louise Dwerryhouse lives in Vancouver.
