The Power of Pain

Pain is never described in the same way by two different people. In the book Pain: The Science of Suffering by Patrick Wall, we find pain explained not only in the scientific sense but in a way understood by all. Everyone has experienced pain, some in the form of illness, some in emotional, some the pain of others around them suffering. Pain is a powerful motivator. When someone is suffering, it’s hard to understand what they are feeling. Pain scales can only tell so much about what a person is feeling.

The experience of trying to convey pain to someone who cannot feel what you do is a hard thing to do successfully. MRIs, CT scans, and x-rays have already predicted some doctor’s movements. The scales set up in “The Sense of Pain” give a realistic sense of how hard it is to articulate the level of pain one undergoes. The book takes us through experiences of people and many different forms of pain. For my brother, a doctor of pharmacy in the Mayo Clinic, pain came in the form of his job. He is an infectious disease specialist and also works on transplant teams in the hospital. As an infectious doctor he deals with the harsh realities of AIDS, CDIFF (a deadly staph infection), and other diseases that are commonly spread and hard to treat or untreatable.

Not only did he have to deal with the harsh reality of dealing with patients dying in the hospital, in February he had to deal with the prospect of his father dying as well. My father was diagnosed with cancer in November of 2006. He did not die from the cancer; my father died from an infection, CDIFF, which attacked his immune system at its weakest. The chapter “Your Pain” really hit home. I know how hard it was for me to cope with my father’s illness, but my brother now had to cope with possibly losing someone to a disease he is spending his life treating. It was hard coping with my own pain and watching my family struggle. It is hard to sit next to someone knowing they are going through pain and sorrow that you could never imagine.

The book explains to us how people cope with pain, what outlets are available, and what people are going through. I even learned about my own condition, something that I had originally just trusted the doctor with and never thought to look up on my own. Everyone feels pain. I just hope that with this book, pain will be a little less of a mystery and a bump in the road of life.