I Wish I Had Cancer: Confessions of a Chronic Pain Sufferer
I Wish I Had Cancer
I wish I had cancer. I know this is a controversial statement. It may seem extreme. I don’t mean to be contentious, but it’s been a thought I’ve been having for some time.
I don’t have cancer. Cancer can be identified and treated. Oncologists and radiologists line up to help cancer patients “beat this.”
Chronic Pain
I have chronic pelvic pain, and terrible constipation and bloating. There's an ache in my bladder that doesn't appear on any scan. I experience great pain with intercourse. No doctor has been able to pinpoint why, or offer viable treatment.
Doctors have provided different diagnoses and spun different tales. I have had to explain to more than a dozen doctors that my vagina hurts and I can’t poop—sometimes through tears. I’ve failed diagnostic tests and recommended treatments, stripping me of my previous record of being a good student and patient.
So many healthcare providers have examined my most intimate parts that I can’t count them all. I am afraid to eat anything that isn’t entirely bland. I am fearful of urinating. Poop doesn't come, as those muscles have long since atrophied. Sex is a moot point, as I’m aware of how painful it would be in this condition. In fact, the idea of sex makes me nauseous. Sex scenes in movies make me cringe.
Medical Trauma
By now I’ve developed what I realize is medical trauma, or healthcare-related PTSD. I’ve been in and out of emergency rooms, and let me tell you, the ER is not a place for chronic pain patients.
I might as well have gone to the DMV. At least the wait is shorter, and they might have been nicer.
I’ve been examined. I’ve been dismissed. There is nothing they can do for me. And I don’t know why. People are living to be one hundred years old these days. Healthcare is prolonging sad lives compromised by illness by decades.
My quality is shit before I’m forty years old. I’m not dealing with this for another sixty years. In fact, if you told me ten months ago that I’d still be dealing with it now, I’d probably have acted on my depressive suicidal ideation before asking for help that wasn’t coming.
The Healthcare System Has Failed Me
I feel like the healthcare field and I had an understanding for several decades. I get sick. I go to the doctor, urgent care, or emergency room. They fix it. They prescribe the medication, or bandage the wound, or fix the cast.
What a lot of people don't know, and what no one is talking about, is that illness and healthcare outcome form a bell-shaped distribution. Place degree of illness on the x-axis and healthcare outcome on the y-axis. You see, the ones in the middle area end up okay. If you have no degree of illness, all the way off to the left, you're fine, through no fault of medical intervention, but you're doing well. If you are really ill, all the way to the right, carrying a burden of deep-rooted illness, and possibly comorbid conditions, healthcare providers aren't going to help much. They may say that they will help manage symptoms, try to increase quality of life, but they are thinking, even if subconsciously, "this patient is too much trouble; too far gone for me." What the patient really wants is to be in that sweet spot on the bell-shaped curve, in the middle, with the degree of pain that doctors feel comfortable with, what they can deal with. Healthcare providers want to chop off the extreme ends of the curve, and end their day feeling better about themselves. Sorry Doctor. I defer to your wisdom.
I’ve never really asked that much of them in the past. I’ve had no major surgeries or cancer scares or long-term illnesses. I’ve had rashes and UTIs. I didn’t think these things were a precursor to falling apart physically and mentally in my thirties.
They have broken their part of the bargain. To be a chronic pain patient is to feel a degree of pain that would double over normal people, consistently, and have to ignore it, work through it. Whereas an average patient would head to the emergency room in that amount of pain, the chronic pain patient says, "This is just another day. My baseline." The chronic pain patient gets up and goes to work. There is no emergency room waiting to help. It's just a regular Tuesday, and that's what we do.
A Vicious Catch-22
And I’m so frustrated at being passed along this never-ending line of specialists—like I’m some hot potato they have to get rid of.
There’s a Catch-22 going on there too that isn’t on the patient’s side. If you are depressed and anxious because you are in pain, healthcare providers are likely to attribute your pain to the anxiety and depression you are suffering from. The treatment they would offer would then be to stop being anxious and depressed. Not helpful. I’d suggest rather that they look for the cause of the pain, try to get it under control, and suggest therapists, coping mechanisms, and psychotropic medications for the mental health issues that should be treated and taken seriously.
I’m just done with this horrible cycle. Another doctor’s appointment to get my hopes up. Wishing for a proper diagnosis, treatment, and dare I say, cure. Hell, I'd be elated if I could only feel heard. I leave with shattered dreams, clutching a tissue.
Things I've been told: "This is just something you deal with now." "It doesn't matter what you call it. We can't treat it." "Take your pants off or don't." "We don't always have the answers in medicine. A lot of people are dealing with pain." "Don't go to the hospital. They can't help you."
My Plea
I beg our healthcare providers to please remember that there are real people behind those online medical records, real lives that may be on pause waiting for your help. Do you see me?
© 2023 Karen Michelle C
