I have been thinking a lot this week about an old story.
Versions of it appear in different cultures and faith traditions, but the basic idea is always the same.
A man goes to a rabbi, priest, or wise elder and complains that his life is unbearable. He lives in a tiny home with his wife and children. There is constant noise. No privacy. Too little space. Too little money. Everything feels impossible.
The wise man listens and then gives a surprising piece of advice.
“Bring a goat into the house.”
The man thinks the suggestion is absurd, but he follows it anyway.
A week later he returns, furious.
“The goat has made everything worse. The smell is terrible. The noise is unbearable. The house is chaos. What kind of advice was that?”
The wise man nods and says:
“Now take the goat out.”
The man does so.
A few days later he returns once more.
This time he is smiling.
Nothing else has changed. The house is still small. The money is still scarce. The children are still noisy.
But compared to living with the goat, everything suddenly seems manageable.
This week, I have been hoping that pain might become my goat.
The pain I have experienced over the last few days has been unlike anything I have known before. Violent nerve pain that has left me sitting awake in the middle of the night, taking medication after medication, searching for relief.
As I write this, I am sitting in the lounge rather than in bed because sleep remains elusive.
Pain has a remarkable ability to dominate everything. It pushes every other concern into the background. It narrows your world until all that matters is making the next minute bearable.
Before this week, I knew that pain was unpleasant.
Now I understand that severe pain is something entirely different.
It is exhausting.
It is frightening.
And at times it can feel endless.
My hope is that this pain becomes my goat.
If the medication works and the pain eventually settles, perhaps I will look back at this week and see it as the benchmark against which everything else is measured.
Perhaps the fatigue of PSP will seem a little easier.
Perhaps the mobility challenges will feel a little lighter.
Perhaps some of the frustrations and losses that come with this disease will shrink in significance.
Not because they have disappeared, but because I have met the goat.
Of course, there is another possibility.
The goat may decide to stay.
Pain is not always a temporary visitor. For many people it becomes a long-term companion, and if that proves to be my future then I will have to learn how to live with it.
But tonight I am choosing hope.
I am hoping that the pain management plan begins to take effect.
I am hoping that the goat leaves the house.
And if it does, perhaps I will discover that many of the things that once felt overwhelming no longer seem quite so large.
Most of all, this week has given me a new appreciation for anyone living with chronic pain.
I thought I understood.
The truth is that I didn’t.
Not really.
Now I understand a little better.
And to everyone carrying that burden every day, I wish you strength, relief, and gentler days.
