Hydrocodone is a miracle for reducing pain. Twenty minutes after I take a tablet, my back is much improved. However, I am reduced to some degree of zombieism. What I have lost is my ability to write a poem. Now, this is interesting, I say to myself. What particular quality of mind is necessary to lift language into the rarified sphere of poetry, if that is indeed the issue. What kind of effect does Hydrocodone have on the posterior cingulate cortex and medial temporal lobes? What does it do to my introspection?
What is a zombie like? A zombie clomps along, dragging its ragged grave clothes, unaware in a primal sense, that it’s leaving death and destruction in its wake. If I’m working on a poem, when it reaches the point of Thinking Through, the point of Making Connections, my mind goes numb. This is the pill, kicking in. Along with the numbness is a predictable easing of my back pain.
“When did the pain begin?” asks the PA. Nearest I can remember is maybe four years ago, rolling over on the dock and feeling a sharp pain in my lumbar region. Well, don’t DO that, I said to myself. Don’t roll over that way. Maybe from then, maybe later. It was never much to fuss about, nothi`ng like my endometrial cancer those years ago!
I got through last summer, blessedly numbed by injections. The next round of injections , three months later, did no good at all. As the pain increased, I tried Tramadol, which did no good, and then—for now, Hydrocodone.
The back is a marvelous invention. Pretty much.
What’s the matter? Beats me. It may be my back; it may be my hip. I’ve been waiting over two months for my appointment with the surgeon my primary doc wants me to see—Jan 8 shimmers in the foreground of my mind like the land of Oz, where the wizard will work his magic, or not.
Meanwhile, I take my pills, I write a few lines, trying to keep the motor running. I’ve given up exercise class. I can sometimes take short walks. Sometimes I borrow Jerry’s walker.
Look at me! I was walking 2-3 miles a day, plus exercise class 3 times a week, and now this!
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Update: Yesterday I got a call from my physical medicine doctor. They have a cancellation! I go in and get new injections in slightly different places. She is pretty sure it’s my back, not my hip. She says when I finally get to see the back surgeon, she thinks he’ll say I’m not a candidate (thank heavens) for surgery. We’ll have to keep working with it in other ways. There is no Land of Oz.
Back to the poems I’m not writing. What’s the relationship between pain and creativity? I’m sitting here in relatively little pain (I took a pill half an hour ago), but also I’m drifting, my mind unable to focus. Interestingly, I can write this blog post. I’m talking to you, telling you about my pain, joking to make the pain seem less. I can do this, but I can’t find the kind of attention necessary to fasten my thoughts to whatever a poem requires.
What do I mean by that? Heaven knows. Poems come from somewhere. About all I can say is in a poem, there’s a necessary shift into a different perception that, in Emily Dickinson’s words, “takes [your] breath away.” The answer to this question is not unlike the question of pain. Where, exactly, does it come from? Sometimes it’s possible to spot the exact place and “fix” it. Sometimes not so much.
I wonder—since my intention is to write this for you, to connect with you in this way—whether this is at all interesting. Have you ever asked someone how they’re getting along, after some physical difficulty, and they go off on a long description of procedures? At some point, you glaze over. So you (the one in difficulty) must turn to other ways to maintain your connection. I promise, the next blog will turn to other matters. Pain can make you narcissistic. You have to climb out of that pit.