Pain Pain Go Away

Pain is universal. I doubt if there is anybody among us who hadn’t suffered any pain. And with no exception, we all have caused pain. All of us came to this world - born - by inflicting pain – though not deliberately, as it is, we were too tiny at that time even to dream of such cruel thoughts.

If I am a sane person, not the one influenced by any external addictive factors, I will be the last person to cause injuries to others. That’s what the poor driver of the Transport bus did today. In Ananthpur ghat section. He was climbing uphill and negotiating a sharp turn. Then he saw the omni-present three wheeler auto rickshaw coming head on to him. All he wanted to do was to save those 3 or 4 people in the auto rickshaw by avoiding a head-on collision. He did manage that, but he didn’t realise that the road is too narrow and there is 30 ft deep gorge on the side. The bus fell into the gorge, killing 15 people on board. Many got injured, they are in the hospital - still suffering from severe pain. So it happens, when we avoid paining somebody, it is possible that we pain somebody else. And chances are high that we will not have enough time or data to think which one will be less painful!

Once I also had a pain, severe one. I had a tooth problem. First cavity in one of my teeth. I went to the dentist. “This needs to be filled”, saying that his hands already went to that drilling machine. To clean the cavity, make it wider and deeper, so that the filling material could seat properly. I was a bit worried. Would this process pain me? If so how do I communicate it to him? Had been any other part of my body being dealt with, I could at least shout, cry. Here that rotating thing at high speed in my mouth, I could not open my mouth more to do that! If I did shake my head, the dentist then would have to fill more cavities in neighbouring teeth – man-made ones, made by himself with that powerful tool.

“Just squeeze my hand if it pains”, the guy seemed to be well experienced. He at least knew what he was doing. In this scenario, he knew his patients’ difficulty in communicating, in normal verbal manner to him. So he set the protocol, I was too happy for that and I opened my mouth even wider allowing him to drill happily. And it pained, pained like hell. I squeezed his hand as per protocol, rather gently. I didn’t want him to lose his aim! He stopped the spindle, but without removing the stuff from my mouth he asked “Is it a pain or just a sensation?”! I was taken aback. This was not there in the protocol. There was nothing else mentioned to be squeezed in the case of just a sensation! Being still mouthful, then all I could do was squeeze his hand again, extremely hard this time, my nails almost piercing his flesh. Just to tell him that it started with a sensation and now in a severely painful state. He got the message! Yes, there are surely different ways to communicate one’s pain and its intensity!

When do we forget about certain a pain? While the root cause of the pain is found out and corrective and preventive actions are taken. But when we face with more severe pain, less severe ones tend to vanish temporarily only to resurface when top priority one dies off. 

My friend, Ramu can vouch for it. 

Ramu had gone to school that day carrying two bottles of water. The teacher had advised them only on the previous day that they should drink plenty of water. To cleanse the body and purge all toxic materials from the body. So whenever he got a chance he drank water that day – end result ? within two hours itself his bladder was full of toxic waste that to be purged out. He had a painful feeling and he controlled it till the next bio-break. He rushed to the rest room, tried to unzip his trousers in a hurry. Halfway through it stuck there, not going up or down. He also sensed the pain as the zip got hooked to the only vital part of the body while trying to go down. He withered with pain, he totally forgot about the urge for purging out the toxic waste. Then another thought made him numb, he totally forgot the pain the zip was causing. His next challenge was how to communicate this situation to others and seek help. Talking about private part of the body was part of the problem, more shameful part for him was that people would know he had forgotten to wear something under his trousers! 

Somehow, Ramu managed to tell his problem to one of the school attendants, who rushed him to a nearby hospital. He recovered from the shame, the doctor removed the zip to release him from pain and for him get the sensation that he had to relieve himself! Next morning onwards, Ramu’s mother took all the pains to check his school uniform dress was in order and more specifically to remind him to wear something under those dresses! All her other pains regarding Ramu became insignificant!

Das was senior in my school. He always stood first- not in his class but in the morning assembly line. He was too short for his age, he never grew. People used to call him “dwarf”, liliput, kulla eta all. Obviously it was extremely painful for him. His parents consulted many doctors, they could not find anything wrong with him. Then one fine day Das started getting a pain. Started in his forehead and he started complaining of pain all over his head. Doctors scanned and declared – “he has a tumour in his brain, to be removed and biopsy to be done”. Operation was successful and they studied the biopsy. “Lucky for him. This is perfectly benign. No problem at all”. Das’s pains vanished. Doctors had promised that the tumour would not grow again and it didn’t. But something else started growing. Das himself! He suddenly started growing tall and that growth stopped only when he touched 6’5’’. And standing erect he could easily touch the basket itself while playing basketball for his school. Yes, at times unexpected pain may lead to some unexpected gain.

No pain, no gain, it is true. But unfortunately certain pain may not result in any gain, it will remain as a pain! While trying to cure that, all we can say to that type of pain is :

Pain Pain Go Away

Come Again Another Day

Bring in Gain Come what May

Pain Pain Go Away!