"pain is a noun, acts like a verb"

As the pain was getting unbearable for him, he became numb. This paradoxical effect of pain was new to us but not to him. His journey of pain care has taken him from doctor to doctor to get some relief so he could even eat, walk, and sleep. 

He was suffering from spinal stenosis with arthritis.  He had undergone physical therapies and diagnostics. He followed his primary care doctor's plan and the pain management specialist's recommendations. The trials of topicals, oral medications, and injections were not cutting through the intensity of his pain.

Then the other day on his follow-up clinic visit, he announced that he accepted a life living with pain. That was the day when a verb became a noun for him as he phrased it.

As he was talking about his companionship with pain, he expressed his regrets about pain management in the healthcare system. He described his experiences with pain management specialists as non-comprehensive procedure-based. They just want you to have an injection.

To some, pain is a non-verbal communication, a warning to watch out, a construct of the brain, a noun that acts like a verb and pushes one to initiate an action.

Others take pain as it is. They claim to have a high pain tolerance, making one wonder about the why of their threshold of pain, whether they are gifted or they became numb.

"as in life so in love"

 As I was taking the history of illness from her husband, I was made aware of their vows of love by the nursing staff. Everyone was sad about their situation knowing it must be hard for them.  She had suffered from a stroke and ended up with a dependency on the ventilator. She was alive on the token of a breath, a heartbeat, and a very involved husband.

Every passing day she was having difficulty in achieving transcendence. There were genuine feelings but the facts contradicted the hope, The team saw the struggles. There was a heart ready to beat a rhythm of life but the brain was numb. We knew that he knew about her poor prognosis but he was not ready to let go of her.

One day the husband requested the team to have her started on Reiki treatment; "the life force may heal her" was his reason. There was skepticism about his want for a nonconventional treatment. 

We are in the practice of medicine following the order of black-and-white protocols, said one who spoke his mind. There was a certainty in her dismal prognosis that everyone concluded, but a curious empathic mind allowed an unconventional path to ease their final goodbyes.

To some, when standing in the no man's land of medicine, supporting a family even if it is against all odds is a "step-up compassion". Others know that the process of living while losing a loved one makes people do things.  As in life so in love, some acts are heroic and others are wishful.