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As a religiously observant and prudish person who met his future wife at 19 and has been married for nearly thirty years, I am really no expert on flings. In fact, my friends and family would probably consider me the last person on earth likely to write a racy novel.
This is about as close as I am ever going to get.
Recently, I have found myself in what can only be described as a new and unexpected relationship.
Unfortunately, the relationship is with pain.
It had been lurking quietly in the background for a while and then, last week, it suddenly exploded with extraordinary force. It knocked me off my feet.
I suppose that is what makes it a little like a fling, at least as I imagine one to be. It arrived unexpectedly, took my full attention and left everything, including day-to-day PSP, in its wake.
I was prescribed medication and assumed, or rather hoped, it would deal with it quickly and that it would soon disappear.
This week I have started to realise that, despite all the medication I am taking, this may not be a fling at all. It is starting to look like a long-term relationship.
Perhaps that is why they call it pain management and not pain solutions.
Even with 2,700 mg of Gabapentin a day and other medications as backup, chronic pain does not seem to simply vanish. It becomes something that must be managed, medication calibrated and, in general, adjusted to and lived with. Occasionally it still lashes out and demands additional remedies, but it increasingly becomes part of the landscape rather than a temporary visitor.
Management is a concept I understand. Over the years I managed teams, consultants, projects and clients. One thing I learned is that management is rarely static. Some rare weeks everything runs smoothly. Other weeks circumstances change without warning and you find yourself constantly adapting.
Pain management feels much the same.
Most of the time the pain is reasonably controlled. It is no longer the explosive force that arrived last week. Instead, it is a dull companion that sits quietly in the background, occasionally reminding me, in more than a small way, that it is still there with a sharper burst in my hands or legs.
It is not what I expected.
I imagined a problem that would arrive, be treated and leave. Instead, I am beginning to understand that this may be different. In fact, last week I described the story of a goat that would be put in the house, create a lot of noise and then things would return to normal. It now seems the goat stays in the corner.
The goal is not necessarily to eliminate the pain completely. The goal is to reduce it, contain it and prevent it from becoming the centre of every day.
I do not particularly like that conclusion.
Like most people, I would prefer a cure, a fix or at least a clear finish line. Accepting that something may be managed rather than solved is, yet again, not an easy adjustment.
But then again, many of the most important things in life require management rather than solutions. Marriages require attention. Friendships require effort. Families require care. Health requires constant adjustment. That is life.
Perhaps chronic pain belongs in that category too.
So it seems I am back in management again. Not management consulting. Pain management.
And if I managed a consulting career for nearly thirty years, navigated unexpected challenges and adapted to changing circumstances along the way, perhaps I can learn to manage this as well.
Not perfectly. Not happily every day.
But well enough to keep moving forward.
