Saturday, July 10, 2004
Knowing Pain
Yesterday I mentioned real pain.
When I was six my mother discovered a large hard lump on the shin of my right leg and took me to a doctor. He then sent us to a specialist.
That specialist said I had a bone tumor. That didn't scare me because I had no idea what a tumor was and besides, there were two other boys in my school that had bone problems (one with bone cancer and the other with some disease that I can't even remember at the moment). He said he could get rid of it so my mother agreed and I was to start treatments that day.
He explained that he would burn the tumor using dry ice. I figured the word ice meant that it would just be cold. I had no idea that it was so cold that it would actually burn. He brought out this syringe like device, about the size of his index finger, and explained that it contained this dry ice stuff. He would press it onto the lump and continue to hold it there pressing on the plunger until all the dry ice was gone.
Next he held my leg so that I couldn't move it and pressed that syringe onto the lump. I had never felt pain like that before. Not even when I got 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my feet the summer before. I screamed like I had never screamed before. And what did the doctor do? He told me to shut up and take it like a man. I was six years old for crying out loud. He kept telling me to shut up, be quiet, it'll be over in a minute. After it was over and I had stopped crying he told me that if I wanted to keep coming back and be helped there could be no more screaming and crying. He then told my mother that if it happened again I couldn't come back. I knew that my mother was afraid for me. I could feel it.
Over the next week my mother drilled it into me not to scream again or cry. The next week when we went back it was even worse for the pain. The doctor ripped off the scab from the first treatment and laid that dry ice on the same area as before. I never screamed. I never cried. And what did I get for my silence? A sucker. A god damned sucker. I endured those treatments for six more months and never again did I scream or cry.
What did I learn from all of that? Never trust a doctor and no matter how much something hurt, I could block it out. Ignore it. It wouldn't go away but I didn't have to acknowledge it.
The problem with that was, it worked so well with physical pain that I began to apply it to any pain, even emotional pain. I never allowed anyone, after that day, to see my pain. The entire time that I was growing up I was told that real men don't show pain and so I didn't. Besides, no pain that I ever encountered after that day, with the dry ice, could come close to what I had experienced then.
The defining moment in that experience came when I realized that my mother wasn't just afraid for me, but terrified. I didn't want to let her down. Her pain was deep enough that I would do anything to not show mine. Most kids know when their mother or father is hurting. No matter how much they push their parents to their limits they know when the parent is in pain. The love that a child has for the parent will somehow transform itself into a caring for them as they have cared for the child. If it takes hiding our own pain so that the parent doesn't feel guilty or in pain themselves some how makes it all worth while.
In my case, although I was protecting my mother on some plane, I was creating a monster within myself. As long as that pain stayed within me. As long as I never let it show, it grew bigger and deeper within me until It overwhelmed me and I began to self-destruct.
There would come a day, thirty-eight years later, when that self-destruction would end. Thirty-eight years of holding it in and finally, one day, it would all come out.
When I was six my mother discovered a large hard lump on the shin of my right leg and took me to a doctor. He then sent us to a specialist.
That specialist said I had a bone tumor. That didn't scare me because I had no idea what a tumor was and besides, there were two other boys in my school that had bone problems (one with bone cancer and the other with some disease that I can't even remember at the moment). He said he could get rid of it so my mother agreed and I was to start treatments that day.
He explained that he would burn the tumor using dry ice. I figured the word ice meant that it would just be cold. I had no idea that it was so cold that it would actually burn. He brought out this syringe like device, about the size of his index finger, and explained that it contained this dry ice stuff. He would press it onto the lump and continue to hold it there pressing on the plunger until all the dry ice was gone.
Next he held my leg so that I couldn't move it and pressed that syringe onto the lump. I had never felt pain like that before. Not even when I got 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my feet the summer before. I screamed like I had never screamed before. And what did the doctor do? He told me to shut up and take it like a man. I was six years old for crying out loud. He kept telling me to shut up, be quiet, it'll be over in a minute. After it was over and I had stopped crying he told me that if I wanted to keep coming back and be helped there could be no more screaming and crying. He then told my mother that if it happened again I couldn't come back. I knew that my mother was afraid for me. I could feel it.
Over the next week my mother drilled it into me not to scream again or cry. The next week when we went back it was even worse for the pain. The doctor ripped off the scab from the first treatment and laid that dry ice on the same area as before. I never screamed. I never cried. And what did I get for my silence? A sucker. A god damned sucker. I endured those treatments for six more months and never again did I scream or cry.
What did I learn from all of that? Never trust a doctor and no matter how much something hurt, I could block it out. Ignore it. It wouldn't go away but I didn't have to acknowledge it.
The problem with that was, it worked so well with physical pain that I began to apply it to any pain, even emotional pain. I never allowed anyone, after that day, to see my pain. The entire time that I was growing up I was told that real men don't show pain and so I didn't. Besides, no pain that I ever encountered after that day, with the dry ice, could come close to what I had experienced then.
The defining moment in that experience came when I realized that my mother wasn't just afraid for me, but terrified. I didn't want to let her down. Her pain was deep enough that I would do anything to not show mine. Most kids know when their mother or father is hurting. No matter how much they push their parents to their limits they know when the parent is in pain. The love that a child has for the parent will somehow transform itself into a caring for them as they have cared for the child. If it takes hiding our own pain so that the parent doesn't feel guilty or in pain themselves some how makes it all worth while.
In my case, although I was protecting my mother on some plane, I was creating a monster within myself. As long as that pain stayed within me. As long as I never let it show, it grew bigger and deeper within me until It overwhelmed me and I began to self-destruct.
There would come a day, thirty-eight years later, when that self-destruction would end. Thirty-eight years of holding it in and finally, one day, it would all come out.
Dana Megyesi 8:27 AM