“Antonio knows that pleasure
Is a child of pain” - Michael Franks, “Antonio’s Song”
Over the stern disapproval of my oncologist, I’ve been booking sessions with a chiropractor since April. It’s an astral experience, perhaps nearly similar to childbirth.
The chiropractor explains that my lymphatic channel is obstructed resulting to 2 major drawbacks. First, toxins are not flashed out, forcing them to linger in my frail body. Second, which is more glaring, the brain’s signals to the body are garbled or not picked up in their proper context. This is the reason why my body, before this chiropractor’s hands were allowed to press nerve-endings here and there, could not recognize pain.
Gee, eureka moment for me, lending clarity to constant ribbings of being “manhid.” That's why I am not ticklish at all. My body just blocked any form of sensation, mostly pain. Amazingly, the body unilaterally decided it’s pain that it shouldn’t recognize, not any other emotion. What if it were joy or love or fear and loathing in Vegas? And Sarah is wailing “And I fear, I have nothing to give. I have so much to lose here in this lonely place..”
Yes, my eyes on the ball here, I was rambling about the body unable to comprehend pain.
Is a child of pain” - Michael Franks, “Antonio’s Song”
Over the stern disapproval of my oncologist, I’ve been booking sessions with a chiropractor since April. It’s an astral experience, perhaps nearly similar to childbirth.
The chiropractor explains that my lymphatic channel is obstructed resulting to 2 major drawbacks. First, toxins are not flashed out, forcing them to linger in my frail body. Second, which is more glaring, the brain’s signals to the body are garbled or not picked up in their proper context. This is the reason why my body, before this chiropractor’s hands were allowed to press nerve-endings here and there, could not recognize pain.
Gee, eureka moment for me, lending clarity to constant ribbings of being “manhid.” That's why I am not ticklish at all. My body just blocked any form of sensation, mostly pain. Amazingly, the body unilaterally decided it’s pain that it shouldn’t recognize, not any other emotion. What if it were joy or love or fear and loathing in Vegas? And Sarah is wailing “And I fear, I have nothing to give. I have so much to lose here in this lonely place..”
Yes, my eyes on the ball here, I was rambling about the body unable to comprehend pain.
While fellow cancer patients exhausted their S2 prescription, that’s the yellow prescription regulating hard drugs such as painkillers, here I was strutting like a favored child of heaven, devoid of discomfort, not needing the aid of a druggist.
Now that my central nervous system is being repaired by the chiropractor and physical pain has made a resurgence in my material world, every philosophical canon, every Zen incantation, lose their insight. It’s unproductive to wax philosophy when pain marches centerstage.
My sister, in a magnanimous gesture of sympathy, asked “want something for the pain?” “Weed, just weed,” I implored. “Get it yourself,” she retorted.
What option did I have but to settle with something that rhymes with weed – read!!! But pain bars you from digesting new information so I ended up re-reading Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth” over my 'painful' weekend in honor of my yellowish, crooked ones. Seriously.
But mostly, sleep. Sleep, the sleep of the innocent, is the best antidote to pain. The pain can go a-throbbing but you’re in wonderland, thank heavens, where it is not welcome.
******************************************************************************
Now that my central nervous system is being repaired by the chiropractor and physical pain has made a resurgence in my material world, every philosophical canon, every Zen incantation, lose their insight. It’s unproductive to wax philosophy when pain marches centerstage.
My sister, in a magnanimous gesture of sympathy, asked “want something for the pain?” “Weed, just weed,” I implored. “Get it yourself,” she retorted.
What option did I have but to settle with something that rhymes with weed – read!!! But pain bars you from digesting new information so I ended up re-reading Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth” over my 'painful' weekend in honor of my yellowish, crooked ones. Seriously.
But mostly, sleep. Sleep, the sleep of the innocent, is the best antidote to pain. The pain can go a-throbbing but you’re in wonderland, thank heavens, where it is not welcome.
******************************************************************************
On another note, the discovery of anaesthesia is considered not just a eureka moment, but a social revolution of sorts. It revealed cracks in the institutional church’s position that pain came with being Christians; that as Christians, there was no option but to endure it.
This mea culpa attitude was overthrown in this crucial shift in the mindset regarding pain. It was only in 1957 thru Pope Pious XII that the Church relaxed its anti-anaesthesia stance, thank you very much. Yes, pain is essential to our existence but if we can avoid it, why not?
Weed, give me my weed. Ai, mistake. Erase, erase.
Wage, decent wage for the working class!!
This mea culpa attitude was overthrown in this crucial shift in the mindset regarding pain. It was only in 1957 thru Pope Pious XII that the Church relaxed its anti-anaesthesia stance, thank you very much. Yes, pain is essential to our existence but if we can avoid it, why not?
Weed, give me my weed. Ai, mistake. Erase, erase.
Wage, decent wage for the working class!!
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