Sharing my Brain Through Chronic Pain
This Essay Brought to You by 87 Days of Agony
As of the writing of this sentence, I have been in pain for 87 consecutive days.
I began seriously pursuing my writing nine months ago.
These two stats are not unrelated.
(What, you don’t constantly quantify everything in your life? No, just me?)
I am going to state upfront, this is not going to be my most eloquent prose, for reasons that will soon become obvious.
One day I was fine. Then the pain began. It started as an ache in my left shoulder, slowly building while I sat in a movie theater watching the latest MCU offering1.
I am no stranger to achy muscles. I’m in my mid 40’s and have logged something on the order of 10,000 miles running in the past nine years. I would tell you that I say this not as a brag, but who are we kidding?
Anyway, I’m used to dealing with nagging aches and pains. A sore shoulder was nothing I couldn’t take care of with some stretching or my massage gun.
Or so I thought.
The next day the pain was worse. And it didn’t respond to my typical remedies. Actually, it did. It got worse.
After a few days I booked a massage. Maybe someone else could solve this problem?
No. Saw my doctor, got multiple pain killers. No effect.
Steroids. Acupuncture. Physical therapy.
Nope. Nada. Nunca.
About a year ago I was also dealing with constant pain. That was caused by a four-ish month long migraine. A cervical arthroplasty to relieve pressure on nerves in my neck from a herniated disc.
I don’t know if it was a brush with mortality or simply the building pressure of decades of too much to say suddenly being uncorked once my head cleared, but once I’d mentally recovered from months of a headache fog, I started writing.
And I haven’t stopped.
I wrote my memoir, a 137,000-word ode to my late twin and my history of trauma and the impact of the people who wouldn’t turn away.
I had a fun idea on a sleepy Sunday, what if a corporate space freighter crashed into a stereotypical lich’s dark tower? Six weeks later I was wrapping up an adventure of undead dragons, tentacle aliens, pedantic wizards, and a… *checks notes*… Mormon missionary2.
But I wasn’t done. I needed to share what I’d learned over the winding path through that memoir. The power of kindness. The freedom in forgiveness. And how to find goodness in a world that seems filled with filled with malice.
And thus… this Substack. It wasn’t started on a whim. I have a lot more to say. Ideas that I truly believe could improve people’s lives.
But the Substack launch coincided with this new bout of pain. Pain I was hoping was going to be resolved soon. But my visit to the neurologist today proved that they still have no diagnosis, much less a resolution. Despite thousands of dollars in artistically black and white glamour shots of my spine.
So, what’s the point of this post? Honestly, it’s my scream into the void. Its Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill, depressed and defeated. I just need to get this out. Get it out of my system like leeching out a poison, so I can get back to things I want to write about.
While I haven’t committed to a posting schedule, I am still pushing through the pain. From the moment I open my laptop I know I have a ticking clock, a countdown until the pain overwhelms me and I have to lay down in the only position where the pain ebbs.
It might be an unpredictable posting schedule. But I am not resigned to defeat. Today I am overwhelmed by pain and the uncertainty. But I’m still writing. I have a lot left to say. The theme of this whole project is failure.
Failure. And in the face of that failure a fact that is absurd in a difficult universe in which we are insignificant in time and space.
I can still be better tomorrow.
I hope you keep reading.
This kind of vulnerable exploration of pain, growth, and meaning-making is what I share every week with subscribers to Radical Kindness: Empathy as Rebellion. If you're on your own journey of healing and ethical living, I'd love to have you join our community.
Thunderbolts* 8/10, pretty good. Thought you should know, since based on the box office you may not.
MythPunk: DoomSpire – Manifesto of the DAMNED - if you’re a literary agent you get genre fiction and memoir from me, plus a side helping of moral philosophy. I honestly don’t know how I remained without representation. Act fast!