Endearing Pain. Colleen Peters
I run three times a week, same route, same pace, and my route allows for lots of space, which I need.
• A recent camping trip to Rushing River with old friends, and the anticipation of our time there again next summer.
All of these things bring me huge collective happiness. I want to embrace, not simply endure, whatever suffering there is along the path I am on, and most days I am able to do that. Having said that, I must also tell you that there are days when I want to scream Frodo’s words from The Lord of the Rings, “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” 9And sometimes I do scream them, and God hears me and knows what I can bear and in his mercy, allows no more. I see much wisdom in Gandalf’s reply to Frodo, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”10
I’ll spend just a few words on the physical aspect of my health. I have been off of the Betaseron injections for six months now with no positive effect. The progression of disease as I perceive it continues as it did during the seven months I was on the meds, as it did during the 20 months prior to starting the meds. My neurologist at the MS Clinic recently conceded that I do in fact have progressive MS, as opposed to relapsing-remitting MS. All this to say that the arsenal of pharmaceuticals used to treat progressive MS has been exhausted. Betaseron was it. I plan to start taking some glyco-nutrients I’ve heard good reports about. In the meantime, we continue to adjust to increasing limitations on my physical abilities.
We are in the process of moving. We bought a home in Riverview in June and sold our house last week. The kids have been fabulous in helping Len carry boxes and furniture to the van the last few nights. My vestibular challenges don’t allow me to do that sort of thing very well anymore. I cut and burn myself, especially my left hand and arm, more frequently as the numbness there deepens. Weakness has also become an issue on my left side and so I rarely use my left hand. I frequently experience stiffness and cramping in my left arm and hand. Tingling and numbness are now constant in my feet and lower legs and, to a lesser degree, in my right hand and arm as well.
The majority of my face is now numb to varying degrees, so if I have food on my face, please tell me! Headaches/neck aches are almost daily, and include eye pain, pressure pain in my ears and temporo-mandibular joints, constricted throat muscles and difficulty swallowing. Vision problems exacerbate my diminished spatial awareness, depth perception, and speed and time–lapse perception. I think what I have the most difficulty with is my increasing inability to concentrate and focus—my ‘addled’ brain. Deductive reasoning happens at a much slower rate than it used to (no wisecracks here please!) Let’s just say that my inherent ‘keen sense of the obvious’ isn’t so keen any more! I find this cognitive vulnerability much more difficult to accept than any of the physical challenges I face.
I began this letter with some thoughts about pain’s resistance to language, and find myself back on that topic as I near the end. In Swenson’s words, “It is imperative then not only that the person in pain attempt to communicate her experience, but also that others work to understand it. . . . and such witness does not depend on perfectly comprehending the full nature of another’s pain.”11
And so I say thank you, to each one of you who reads this. Your willingness to ask how I’m doing and to hear my answers; the shorter ones I give when we speak, and the longer more exhaustive written ones such as this, means more than you know and play a crucial part in my healing process.
I was recently reminded of how an oyster reacts to a painful grain of sand that gets inside its shell. It responds by wrapping translucent layers around the grain of sand until something of great value is formed. I think an analogy of sorts can be made to the pain in peoples’ lives. Suffering is indeed a mysterious thing in the hands of God, and the results of suffering can be something of great value. I believe this is not only a possibility in God’s kingdom among us, but a definitive dimension of it. I have confidence in a benevolent God, whose love for me knows no bounds and who will continue to allow the transforming effect of chronic illness to draw me closer to him and to produce something of great value. Keeping my eyes on ‘what is not seen’ allows me to say, “It is well with my soul.”
I’ll leave you with some words from Psalm 18 that have been a solace for me this week:
The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold . . . He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me . . . For who is God except the LORD?” (Ps 18:2, 19, 31a)
Love,
Colleen
4. Swenson, Living Through Pain, 40.
5. Boyd, Being Sick Well, 210, 13.
6. Swenson, 12–13.
7. Ibid., 47.
8. Foster and Smith, Devotional Classics, 68.
9. Jackson, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” DVD.
10. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 50.
11. Swenson, 42–43.
What Makes Life Splendid
April 2008
“Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs?”12
It’s April 7, and I have just returned from a breathtaking and life-giving run. Yes, I am still running, and so very happy to be able to do so. Running outdoors in all seasons is one thing that has not changed while so many other things have. The last ten months have been full and fast, owing largely to the buying and selling of houses, followed by moving, renovations and quasi-unpacking. We started looking at houses over a year ago and took possession of our new house at the end of August. I’ve been in no rush to unpack and there remains much to do before we are settled in, including more renovations this spring and summer.
Having said that, I must also tell you how very content I am here, and grateful for God’s permanence in the transience of life. The idiosyncratic nature of time loomed large in my experience this past year—one day a blur and the next a slow trickle of events. We’re simply not wired for time are we? Having so much time on my hands, I find myself thinking about it often, and the longer I ‘swim’, the stronger my sense that time is less of a river and more of an ocean, and that how I choose to live and attend to each moment is a weighty decision.
“Be attentive to time . . . nothing is more precious. This is evident when you recall that in one tiny moment heaven may be gained or lost. God, the master of time, never gives the future. He gives only the present, moment by moment, for this is the law of created order, and God will not contradict himself in his creation.”13
I have experienced much happiness since moving to Riverview. I’ve felt drawn to pay attention to birds, and clouds and skies, to faces, to the heavens and their lights both great and small, and to silhouettes. These are some of the seemingly random things I’ve felt compelled to notice since the fall, and in doing so I’ve stumbled happily upon God’s coming in arresting ways and in unexpected