SPOILER ALERT
House M.D. Season 4 episode 16 (“Wilson’s Heart”) is referenced and/or discussed below.
I noticed the following before I had this blog, and I wrote it soon after I started it, so now I’m finally posting it, and updating it as well.
House identified with us Fibro sufferers long before
Lost, which I discussed
previously, did.
It’s always nice when TV characters say things that so perfectly verbalize how I have felt. This happens frequently on
House MD. I guess that’s to be expected, since House suffers from chronic leg pain. I wonder how the show would be different if he had chronic leg pain all over his body, as we fibro sufferers do. That is not to say that I am arrogant about fibro-pain; obviously any pain can be torture, and obviously people react in different ways. Even I react in different, seemingly inconsistent, ways to various levels and surface areas of pain.
Anyway, this is one time in particular where House and his pain really connected with me. In the relevant scene, House is nearly dead, and knows that either Amber is dead, or she will be soon. He hallucinates or dreams that the two of them are on an empty bus, and Amber has told him that he must leave this bus, and thus go back to the real, living, world. He tells Amber, “It doesn't hurt here. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to be miserable.” Amber replies with the Rolling Stones lyric and quintessential
House quasi-catch phrase, “Well, you can’t always get what you want,” and House exits the bus, returning to his life of chronic pain.
What struck me is that House wanted to stay where it didn’t hurt, even if that place was death. When I had some of the worst pains I’ve ever felt, and I didn’t know if it would ever end (of course that only happened before I started physical therapy, knock on wood), I wanted to die. I mean, I hoped I would die, to escape from the unbearable pain. That is not to say I was suicidal; I was definitely not, in that I would not have done anything to cause my own death, but I simply hoped for it. I’m glad I didn’t die though, since the unbearable pain did go away.
For those suffering from fibromyalgia or otherwise diagnosed or undiagnosed pain, don’t lose hope – there most likely is an end to the pain other than death. If it is or could be fibromyalgia, I can say from experience that the unbearable part of the pain will go away. Fibro-flare-ups don’t last forever, and they will go away, even if you don’t do anything to help it go away. This is what I’ve experienced, and also my awesome physical therapist mentioned a couple of years ago that those periods of unbearable pain will end, either in seconds, minutes, hours, or weeks (in my experience, I don’t think any of these pains lasted for months at a time, but they might have, since my
perception of time has been known to get a bit screwed up).
Knowing that there will be an end (a non-fatal one, um, knock on wood) helps so much; I can tolerate a lot more pain when I know it will end. Of course, the sooner it ends the better, and keeping it from getting to that level is even better. Physical therapy, for me, keeps it from getting anywhere near that level of pain. It occasionally gets close-ish, but when it gets that bad, it doesn’t last longer than a day or two. I have had fibro-flare-ups (well, at least one, about two months ago) after physical therapy started that lasted two or three weeks, however, the pain was not terrible; that fibro-flare-up involved fatigue and maybe weakness with non-severe pain of larger quantities than usual. I heart physical therapy.
. I don’t think I said “hilarious” enough.
