Silent Pain

By Andrea Scarpino

Pain’s silence. From elementary school through college, I struggled with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, used crutches to walk, took prescription painkillers by the handful. But I mostly struggled in silence, rarely telling friends why I missed every gym class, never played a sport, why I missed so much school. And they didn’t ask.

For the last 12 years, mastalgia, crippling pain in my breasts. I know this sounds bizarre. I know it’s uncomfortable, difficult to imagine. But the pain doesn’t care, lasting from three days to three weeks every month. And it’s not localized. It’s swelling, radiating heat, weight gain. It’s all-encompassing body pain. I can’t exercise. I can only wear certain shirts. When someone jostles me in a crowd, I fight back tears. Hugging a friend, my partner, makes me gasp. I know it’s bizarre, uncomfortable. Who has crippling pain in their breasts?

I’ve gone to a bevy of doctors and specialists, many of whom are also clearly uncomfortable when I present my symptoms and the years of charting I’ve done to track the pain, try to understand why it ebbs and flows. I’ve tried everything from acupuncture to eliminating from my diet soy/caffeine/salt/dairy. I’ve had mammograms, ultrasounds, extensive blood work. I’ve rubbed iodine on my wrists, eaten only cruciferous vegetables, taken B vitamins, Evening Primrose Oil, birth control pills, progesterone. Nothing has brought lasting relief. Nothing has even come close.

So here it is, this silent pain. Again, I seldom tell friends—it’s a boring conversation to have again and again—yes, 7 days of pain this month. Yes, 11 days last month. I mostly don’t even tell Zac any more, though he can tell when things are getting bad—he can feel heat radiating from my chest, feel my body tense protectively when he comes close. Mostly, I struggle with mastalgia silently. The first thing I do every morning is scan my body for pain. When I’m in pain, the last thing I do every night is try to position myself comfortably, take a few slow, deep breaths, imagine the pain will be gone when I wake up. After 12 years, I’m starting to realize mastalgia is part of me; not a part I choose, of course, and a part I would trade most anything to be done with. But hating the pain doesn’t make it go away. Neither does raging, begging or crying. It just stays.

So I’m trying, trying to live with it, in silence mostly. Trying to ebb and flow as it does. Trying to be okay with pain, with silence. As Samuel Beckett writes at the end of The Unnamable:

It will be the silence, where I am? I don’t know, I’ll never know: in the silence you don’t know.

You must go on.

I can’t go on.

I’ll go on.

Andrea Scarpino is a poet and essayist who currently lives in Marquette, Michigan. Visit her at: http://www.andreascarpino.com

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto