Last night I had a massage for the first time in 8 years. I have a lot of scar tissue in my left shoulder because I have been working a guide dog for over a decade. Guide dogs pull continually as a principal means of establishing navigational contact with their blind companions. The scapular area in my left shoulder is quite painful.
When I told my wife this morning that I’d gotten a massage last night, she wanted to know if it was painful. I said "yes" and she, like the true friend all spouses should be, said: "good!" Then she wanted to know if I "took it like a man." "Yes," I said, "I wept silently into my pillow."
I wonder sometimes if the able bodied public knows that people with disabilities have stress injuries that are the result of their accommodations. Wheelchair users have carpal tunnel syndrome; back aches, neck aches, profound tension headaches—all of these things are essentially the norm for PWDs.
I’m not interested in the business of "comparative pain"—the old farmer and his wife trading jobs gambit. I don’t like it when non-disabled people trot out the hoary hypothetical: "Which would you rather be? Blind or deaf?"
The proper answer is "neither" unless you are already blind or deaf, in which case you have a strong familiarity with the fatuous nature of that question. "On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia."
Nonetheless, everyone hopes, whether they’re disabled or non-disabled, to have a static position regarding suffering. If we’re masochistic we want to know that our private pain is worse than the sufferings of the fellow next door. If we’re sadistic we want others to relive the life of Job.
None of this has anything to do with my wife. She knows that a good massage will be necessarily agonizing if it has therapeutic value. And hey, we all enjoy a teensy bit of suffering in others.
I paid greenbacks for my massage. I’m lucky to have the means to get some "body work" done. If I ever win the lottery I will start a foundation so that all PWDs can have the same experience.
Now I must put my pillow in the dryer.
Ernest Hemingway ain’t got nothin’ on this baby!
SK
Planet of the Blind 
What I hate is when it hurts so much that crying would actually create more pain than it relieved. Oy!
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I, too, have had shoulder/upper back massages that left me crying in my pillow, but I have to say I felt so much better emotionally as well as physically that I’d have one every week if I could afford it. And I am not even that much of a glutton for punishment. Hope you’re feeling better now…
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That’s right Blue Girl! In fact, maybe a year’s worth of massages but make a nice Christmas gift. Hmmm.
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Of course Connie knows that a good massage is going to hurt a little if it’s done right. But, I’m also sure she remembers that little remark when you were writing about being up at Lake Winnipesaukee. She just might schedule another massage for you!
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