Pain experience

In the morning when I came to visit my patient, she was indeed very pleased to see me. She was far way better than the previous days I had been with her. I asked her why she is in such a happy mood today. She was enthusiastically answering my question and I was very glad about it. She was very thankful because she was able to tell her mom about her hospitalization but mostly she’s happy because finally the doctor agreed to sedate her during the procedure PTMC (Percutaneous Transvenous Mitral Commissurotomy). She had been discussing this matter with the doctor and finally they agreed that’s why nothing can change the way she’s feeling right now. Although it was discussed to her many times that this will not cause her so much pain, what really frightens her is that maybe she will not be able to tolerate the procedure.

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensation which occurs in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder. We all have our own experience of pain and of being hurt by someone or by something. Whatever it is that causes us pain, we tend to avoid it because we don’t want to experience the same feeling we had felt before. We are frightened to be in that kind of situation once more. We don’t want to be in that same experience again. But did it ever cross our mind at least once that in most times, it is in pain that we find meaning in life?

Pain experience leads us to so many realizations in life. Imagine those who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses, they are hurt so much both physically and emotionally and this makes them realized so many things in their life. I don’t know exactly what they are feeling because I was not in that kind of situation and I would never want to be. But as what I’ve observed with the patients I’ve handled and encountered, sick people value life more than those who are well. I can say that those who are with health conditions tend to have a more positive outlook in life. They see their life in a different way, that even in their darkest hour they can still see a light, a glimpse of hope that everything will be okay.

It is pain that reminds us that there is something in life that we should value. It is in pain that we realized the importance of family, friend, relationship, companionship and so many things. It is in pain that we value our faith and recognize the existence of God. It is in pain that we discover our own strength.

As a nurse, who had been exposed to patients experiencing different kinds of pain, I have realized that there are so many things that I should value in life.  I should be very thankful to God for so many things, I am not the one who is sick and needs help would be one. I have the opportunity to touch someone’s life and help them make the most of it would be another thing. I am alive and ready to experience what pain life would bring because I so believe that I have my friends and family who will be there when such time comes.

May we all have the same realizations in life even without the experience of pain.