I had to reblog this, and I hope that this most excellent, sensitive and honest essay by a British doctor speaks to others as it spoke to me. We all struggle with chronic pain, sufferers and general practitioners alike. We need a lot more of this kind of honesty, while the search to understand the lives of chronic pain sufferers, and the causes and treatments for illnesses like fibromyalgia/CFS/ME continues.
Frida Kahlo’s painting is shocking, but dignified. We can all find some dignity in pain despite the loneliness and the bleak days.
Frida Kahlo, The Broken Column, 1944
That [Kahlo] became a world legend is in part due to the fact that … under the new world order, the sharing of pain is one of the essential preconditions for a redefining of dignity and hope. John Berger
Please don’t come back!
My forehead thumped down on my desk after a ten minute appointment that had stretched out to over half an hour, I felt completely exhausted and still I had another 17 patients to see and I was now running 25 minutes late. It wasn’t just that I felt exhausted, I felt useless and demoralized and more than that, I felt angry, really pissed off.
I had spent the last 30 minutes listening to Sharon describe her pains, which shifted from the somatic – how they feel, to despair – how she feels, and anger – how she feels about me…
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