As I sit here in physical pain, I know that there are those of you who have more pain than I have ever experienced. How do I know that? Well, the truth is, I don’t. I do not know how your body feels. Equally, you do not know how mine feels to me.

I was talking to my physical therapist about the quality of pain. I told her that what was once painful for me fifteen years ago is no longer the case. That pain – I am used to it now, or perhaps I have recently experienced an even worse pain, so the past pain pales in comparison. Anyway, my PT told me that when someone in the medical field asks their patient to scale their pain, they are not comparing it to anyone else. They simply want to know what the level of pain is for you. How do you feel now? Where does your discomfort fall within your own capability to cope? Or something like that, at least. Ergo, as treatment progresses, the patient is continually asked the same question, giving the doctor/therapist, or whomever, a good idea of whether or not you are improving.

Unfortunately, pain does not always dissipate. Sure, an acute pain is more than likely going to subside eventually, but chronic pain is harder to combat. Chronic pain can keep going and going – it’s known as intractable pain. At the start, you will be grateful that it’s not acute, but when it just does not subside, it becomes exhausting and a form of torture. Therein lies the necessity of pain management.

There are several medications one may take for pain, but not every pill works for every person. The ins and outs of medicines must be discussed with doctors – the people who are able to prescribe them. However, medicines on their own might not be effective, resulting in said torture.
So, how exactly are you expected to manage? What can you do to help yourself? I can’t promise you that what I’m about to suggest will work for you, but I am going to tell you what I am doing. I am basically being proactive about my pain.

Despite being physically uncomfortable, I have joined a gym. The shocking part is not that I am trying to exercise through the pain, but that I have joined a gym! Folks, I innately hate the gym and any form of exercise affiliated with the gym, but I have made up my mind that I am going to enjoy this and enjoy the process of becoming fit again. Up to about twenty years ago, I was actually incredibly fit, having spent all my school years playing team sports – netball, field hockey, lacrosse, cricket, rounders, and even water polo. Those were fun. I was never that good at what I call individual sports, such as squash or tennis, but teams sports…..I loved and I was really good at them.

I think the reason why I needed team sports in my life is because I wanted to be outside and I wanted to be part of a group who had one common goal – to win! Okay, okay, winning is not everything, but it sure helps to raise the endorphins. While many people find that any form of exercise raises their endorphins, historically I have found that working out in a gym is really quite lonely. I have had no common goal to share with anyone. This time, it’s different. This time, I have a bigger purpose. My health depends on it. My children and my husband, therefore, depend on it. I have two friends who have also signed up for the same ‘special’. They are doing it to get fit themselves, but they are aware of why I am doing it and they are supportive of my reasons. Together, we have a common goal, and because of their support, I know that I will beat this pain. I know that, in the end, I shall win.

How many of you have been in a long distance relationship at some point in your life? A new boyfriend, a serious love, or even a spouse? For some of you, you might not have found it that difficult, but for others, perhaps, it seemed next to impossible.

Traveling back and forth between my home in Jamaica and school in the UK, I was put in this position a few times, but I was in my late teens, so it was no big deal to leave the present puppy-love interest for a few months. To be honest, the boyfriends in those days didn’t even last so long, nor would they have, even if I had stayed put in one place. I was, however, put in a position when I was 19 years old. I fell in love with someone on the other side of the world (and in the opposite hemisphere), but I knew that it was completely impractical to pursue it past a few more months of long distance love letters. I know that I broke his heart in a great effort to save my own from eventually breaking, but it was testament to the fact that I was incapable of being in any relationship that required me to be distant from any man. Call it self-preservation, if you will, because I suppose that is what it was.

This brings me to think about what distance means.

A friend of mine has been in a long distance relationship with her husband for fifteen years. Small pockets of time have had their family living together, but for the majority of this duration, they have lived in different countries. Their reasons for doing this are understandable – job, money, extended family support, personal happiness – but of course, there have always been those who have judged her for the decisions made in the last decade and a half. It has not been, nor is it presently, easy for my friend, as she still makes every effort to make decisions that will bring about the greater good for the five of them in their immediate family. She and her husband have been through ups and downs, like in any marriage, but with the added stress of not being physically together for the majority of the time. However, as she pointed out to me, “You have people sleeping together in the same bed every night and they themselves are actually in a long distance relationship.”

How true are her words, right? How easy it is to let life and the daily stresses of work, raising children, supporting the family financially, and every little thing in between, cause us to shut down emotionally and verbally, resulting in an uncomfortable silence and a long term lack of communication. Before we have had a chance to realise that this is happening, we find ourselves proverbial distant from our relationship – a situation we have created, while the people in physically long distance relationships have a common goal in mind – to eliminate the distance and keep the channel of communication wide open.