A Quote by Jerome Groopman
Many years before when I had serious back pain from a sports injury, the surgeons said they would explore my spine and "figure it out." Out of frustration I had impulsively opted for the procedure. They ended up fusing the vertebrae. It left me debilitated. In hindsight, I blamed myself more than the surgeons. I had pressed them for a solution when in fact none was apparent because the cause of the pain was obscure.
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I've had five surgeries that could have ended most people's careers. But because of the fact that I'm resilient and have a lot of pride, I refused to let myself go out except on my terms. An injury is not going to take me out.
Rowing, particularly sculling, inflicts on the individual in every race a level of pain associated with few other sports. There was certainly pain in football during a head-on collision, pain in other sports on the occasion of a serious injury. That was more the threat of pain; in rowing there was the absolute guarantee of it every time.
He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.
When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.
This was why I was here. This was why I would take whatever reception waited for me when I got back. Because, underneath all the anger and the sarcasm, Jacob was in pain. Right now, it was very clear in his eyes. I didn't know how to help him, but I knew I had to try. It was more than that I owed him. It was because his pain hurt me, too. Jacob had become a part of me, and there was no changing that now.
I was seeing everything through pain. I would roll out of bed and do my exercises. I had to do that to work out the remainder of the pain pills. I would drink coffee and go to the set and plunge myself so far into my work.
It is most necessary to know the nature of the spine. One or more vertebrae may or may not go out of place very much and if they do, they are likely to produce serious complications and even death, if not properly adjusted. Many diseases are related to the spine.
15 or 20 years ago it would not have been possible for me to come out. Back then, people still had such narrow views, but today many of them are more liberal. Being gay is no longer a taboo in many parts of society. That has affected sports, even boxing.
It was not the thought that I was so unloved that froze me. I had taught myself to do without love. It was not the thought that God was cruel that froze me. I had taught myself never to expect anything from Him. What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction. What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity. Now even that had flickered out.
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?
I decided to be a filmmaker between my sophomore and junior years at Morehouse. Before I left for the summer of 1977, my advisor told me I really had to declare a major when I came back, because I'd used all my electives in my first two years. I went back to New York and I couldn't find a job. There were none to be had. And that previous Christmas someone gave me a Super-8 camera, so I just started to shoot stuff.
They wanted it because they've got some sort of darkness in them. And maybe because they like pain. Because pain turns them on. Well, maybe it turns me on, too," she said quietly. "In fact, I know it does, because loving you hurts. And yet, I still come back for more.
I actually had kind of one of those crazy experiences where when I hit, it was black out excruciating pain, and then white out absence of pain, and the subconscience thought that I want to go back.
I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.
I once visited an RSPCA hospital in Norfolk. I spoke to the vets working there, and asked them how many times they had had to treat a fox that had been brought in with a shooting injury. The answer from a vet who had worked there for many years was, Not once. When I asked him why, he said,You can take it from me that when the fox is shot in the countryside by somebody trained, it is dead.
For a second I think about how easy it would be to pass back to the other side, to walk straight into the laboratories and offer myself up to the surgeons. You were right; I was wrong. Get it out.
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