Xmas Diary: I Know What Pain Means Now
Shelagh Fogarty has been in pain. A lot.
23 Dec 2011, 22:36
Pain
* I promise some Christmas spirit in this diary but first I want to talk about pain - physical pain. Years ago, aged 18, I took part in a medical study to find out more about the human response to physical pain. The process was harmless to me, and not at all distressing, but the data would go towards a larger study to help doctors treat people suffering from chronic pain. I remember thinking at the time I couldn't imagine that and thankfully haven't had to find out so far. Even so, I've just about recovered from three weeks of excruciating back pain, something I've experienced before but never on this scale - tears and even fainting at one point. In the thick of it I've been thinking about the thousands of people who wake up every day knowing pain will accompany them wherever they go, if indeed they can go anywhere, and that it won't pass eventually. Huge strides have been made in the treatment of chronic pain since I sat as a teenager in a hospital doing my bit for medical science. Self management is encouraged, and carefully prescribed drugs and steroids bring enormous relief to many. Auto immune disease often causes the conditions which lead to chronic pain - arthritis, poly myalgia, rheumatism to name a few. For now there's not much one can do to prevent one of these despite massive research into why the body sometimes turns on itself in this way. I live near an Age UK social centre and I see the same woman walk past my window most days on her way there. She is immaculately groomed but the tiny steps she takes and the look on her face tell their own story. I so admire her determination to simply keep moving. So as winter laziness creeps in maybe we should all remember that to err is human but to move is divine.
* I've always admired Banksy's art. I lived around the corner from one of his North London murals for years and most of all I liked the sheer cheek of his methods. There is, though a big difference between cheek and thoughtless offence. At the launch of his exhibition at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool ( a wonderful gallery if you ever have the chance to visit) he explained his sculpture of a faceless priest. It represented he said all that Christianity stands for - abuse, lies, corruption. Come on, Banksy. Engage your brain as well as your paints. Is Democracy reprehensible because its history is littered with the same three qualities? Is Family to be scrapped for the same offences? Is Human Love to be abandoned because its practitioners sometimes lie, abuse, corrupt? If so, rub me out along with the priest in the gallery.
* Cyrus Thatcher, the 19 year old British soldier who died a few weeks ago in Afghansitan, is my Man of the Year. His letters to his family, including one to be read only in the event of his death, moved me enormously. The joking, newsy missives he wrote in the sand and the heat of his base were warm, littered with spelling mistakes, and full of excitement, bad language and tough talk. His final letter, given to his parents after he died, is unutterably beautiful. No words of mine could begin to do it justice. If you read just one thing on Christmas Day, make it Cyrus' last letter.
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