Pain - Corpus

#vaginalmesh not #pelvicmesh: Let’s call it what it is nē?

20 July 2020 13 Comments

Iona Winter

Eight weeks post-op, a simple procedure to inject Botox into my pelvic floor and I was done with the pain. During a trip to town to see the GP (again), a 40-minute drive with a tennis ball under my nono, I’d felt a strong urge to scream. The pain was unbearable. After the GP I drove for another hour – my current idea of hell (the driving bit) because everything from my vagina down to my foot goes numb. I worked my shift at the library, and when I got home the bloody fire wouldn’t start. Let’s just say the fire copped an earful. Thankfully I live alone.

Pain (of any kind, I’m thinking laterally here), like anger, is a potent force. Invisible pain does not mean that it’s all in our heads. And while I realise it’s difficult for others who are unable to fix it, just stop with the silencing, please.

“The Track”: word-walking through pain

7 October 2019 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

I counted my footsteps and made alphabetical lists of things (one two three ant, one two three bee) without missing a single beat.” – Paula Green, The Track.

In 2015, poet Paula Green set out to walk the 70 km-long Queen Charlotte Track at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. The track winds from bay to bay from Meretoto/Ship Cove to Anakiwa, a 3-5 day walk through a beautiful and historic landscape. All went according to plan until, on the longest day and during a violent storm, Paula slipped, sustaining two foot fractures. Ten hours of painful walking lay ahead.

Before her accident, Paula was already walking as a poet, collecting images and stories as she traversed the track. The “slap / of pain in the midst / of walking” changed everything. From this moment on, Paula is, quite literally, word-walking out of the bush. The alphabet itself becomes a crutch, rhythm becomes a painkiller, and each line lays down another small segment of the track underfoot.

Paula’s recently-published poetry collection, The Track, is an account of this journey.

Thinking outside the box

5 June 2017 17 Comments

Iona Winter

Tīmata

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of us who experience on-going pain will seek relief from medical practitioners. Four years of repeat presentations in excruciating pain, to GPs and emergency departments, and the medical profession were unable to diagnose my son. Being a skinny young Māori musician, they labelled him a ‘drug seeker’ instead.

When someone doesn’t fit into a prescribed box, shouldn’t you look further?

Mind and body in medicine

24 October 2016 Leave a Comment

John Dunbar

All medical professionals will recognise a large number of patients who present with symptoms that are difficult to explain or are out of proportion to the condition from which they appear to suffer. These patients present a serious challenge to a medical system which has become increasingly guided by scientific evidence. Under this western medical model, a patient will present with symptoms which can be investigated with various tests or scans, the investigations will confirm a diagnosis and then appropriate treatment can be instituted. Appropriate treatment is considered to be that which has been proven beneficial by scientific method.

There are many occasions, however, where investigations for quite significant signs and symptoms turn up nothing abnormal. Pain is common but other symptoms including chronic headaches, fatigue and some abdominal complaints fit into this category. Such a scenario often leaves both doctor and patient confused and frustrated. Few doctors have effective means for helping these patients and the patients may seek an answer through alternative practices. The description ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ has been coined.