Silent Pain

Today we went to Bethyl Nagar Leprosy Colony. It was a larger colony, but we still have enough volunteers that I wasn’t able to be involved with direct patient care, so I was the paparazzi for the day. One lady came in on a wheely board—not a wheel chair but a small rectangle board with wheels attached to the bottom of it, only about 4 inches off the ground. There seemed to be more prosthesis use and severely affected limbs and appendages among the residence here. Maybe I saw more havoc simply because it is a larger colony or maybe I was just paying closer attention to everyone coming in and not just the ones I personally helped care for. Either way, I also noticed a greater sense of “ump” and independence among these people. I would try to help some of them with their shoes or give them an arm to help them get up off the floor, but they were very insistant and wanted to do things by themselves—especially the lady with the wheely board. It wasn’t a bitter doing everything themselves either, just simple positive perseverance along with a genuine appreciation for the services they were receiving. These people are so sweet. They all are. When Claartje was taking off a lady’s bandage, the lady reached up and was helping to “fix” Claartje’s hair. I have said this before and I will likely say it many more times simply because it is true-being in the colonies, no matter what you are doing, is a very emotionally intense experience because you encounter the extremes of numerous emotions.  

 I have been reading this book called, “The Gift of Pain” by Dr. Paul Brand and some other guy…….Phillip Yancey. Dr. Brand is a surgeon that pioneered research of leprosy as a disease. He actually worked in Changletput, which is a city about ½ hour from us. A little known fact about leprosy is that like advanced diabetes and congenital indifference to pain—it attacks the carriers nerves. In leprosy the nerves most affected are the nerves in the cooler parts of the body—in the nose, eyes, hands, feet, earlobes, skin, etc. Once the nerves are damaged, the affected people can hit, cut or burn themselves without feeling a thing. They can break their ankle and walk on it for weeks, causing more and more damage which can lead to cracking of the skin, introduction of infections and/or permanent harm resulting in amputation of the affected toe, finger, leg, arm-whatever. Dr. Brand calls the loss of sensation a curse, and I’ve come to agree with him. Pain is a good thing, in that it allows us to know when something is wrong and when certain limits have been met. It sucks sometimes, but it really is a gift.

I’ve met so many people (at home and abroad) who will do anything they can to relieve or prevent pain. I’ve done it myself.  Don't get me wrong, that isn’t an evil thing, but it struck me as so ironic that I’m so use to seeing pain as an entirely negative thing when the people I am working with, would love to feel pain. In fact, their lives would be drastically different if they could experience pain. Emotionally there is pain. Actually, we have been implementing the 12 Steps within the colonies because many of the residence struggle with drinking problems as well. Being surrounded by all this pain—emotional or “silent” pain-has help me to KNOW that pain is necessary. I always knew and believed it was necessary, but now I KNOW it is necessary. Not being able to feel it leads to all sorts of issues. Trying to always be free of it leads to a ton of issues too. Personally, I know how painful life can be, painful physically, painful emotionally, painful spiritually and painful mentally. However, I think that only now can I honestly say that I would almost always prefer to have pain over having no pain at all.