I often wonder about other human experiences, both uncommonly good experiences with abundance and unfortunate experiences of deprivation, poverty, and challenge.
Inhabiting this body, this body with rheumatoid arthritis, I struggle to find words to describe the sensations that are completely foreign to me. One would think that after having the same body for 100% of my lifetime that I would have explored and experienced the vast majority of sensations that a body is capable of feeling.
Not so.
Many sensations of pain are new, shocking, and noteworthy. It's as if they are so bad, they merit description. The pain is so deep, so bad, so enduring, that it must have a description to match. There is an insufficiency to shorter more subtle ways of talking about pain.
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My hip hurts.
vs.
The pain in my hip feels like a railroad spike, possibly rusty, is lodged in between the bones.
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I can't quite see that.
vs.
The vision in my left eye has been blurry for six months and two days with an irreparable, known side effect to a medication that was supposed to help.
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It sure is chilly outside.
vs.
The muscles in my legs just seized, suddenly and forcibly, due to the cold and it will take hours to relax them.
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My hands are cold.
vs.
I can't tell where my fingers are because the bones, joints and tendons in my hands are unbearably cold to the point of distraction. I can't think of much else actually.
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I suppose the robust descriptions are a simple manifestation of the omnipresent roulette wheel of symptom presentation.
Another blog about the strange poverty of English discussed the vocabulary of pain. This one relates for sure.
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