Happy Idiot

by Dean Kramer
September, 2008

A while ago I was hanging out with some people who were
deep into Buddhism. These people had a guru with whom
they met when he so chose. He gave them Buddhist
nicknames, meditation instructions, and all the other
accoutrements that descend on Followers of a Great Teacher.

Somehow or other I ended up with a nickname, too—Happy
Idiot. At first I was a little, you know, put off by it. But over the
years I have definitely grown into it.

My attitude toward pain and MS is an example of my Happy
Idiocy. For many years I sometimes had burning or shock
sensations in my legs. I assumed these sensations were what
most people meant by “pain associated with MS”. I was very
pleased with myself because I experienced these sensations
as feelings of burning or shock rather than as pain.

“Mind over matter,” I smugly congratulated myself, “If I don’t
experience it as pain, then it isn’t pain.” I probably thought I
was a spiritual giant well on the way to Enlightenment.

There were those who worried that MS was causing me pain
and I was stoically ignoring it. “Not at all.” I said when they
asked, happy to be able to reassure them. “Those sensations
I might experience as painful I am able to reinterpret and they
don’t hurt me.”

I even told them that I didn’t experience pain as pain. “I have a
very high tolerance for pain.” I told people.

(“Oohhh!” I imagined them thinking, “a Spiritual Giant on the
way to Enlightenment, that’s what she is!”)

But, Happy Idiot that I am, I really didn’t know what I was
blathering about. Like Crocodile Dundee to the hoodlums,
my body has recently said to me, “That’s not pain. THIS is
pain.” I have become intimately acquainted with nerve pain
associated with MS, and I now understand that whatever I
thought I was experiencing before, I was correct—it wasn’t
pain.

My current, and real, pain is in my left leg and runs from my
butt into my groin and down my leg to my shin. It isn’t
constant nor, when it’s active, is it in all those places all the
time.  I am grateful for that because when it is in all those
places at once my leg actually curls up and refuses to extend.
Mind over matter is no help at all.

I have tried massaging my leg. It just seems to spread the
pain into a few more places. I have also tried light, non-
weight-bearing exercise. That just increases the spasms.
No matter what I tell myself, my leg stays frozen and
contracted in pain waiting eagerly for some ibuprophen.

As I sit here writing, though, I’m aware that currently my leg
isn’t hurting. And, now that I think of it, there has been less
pain day by day. So perhaps it’s an MS symptom on its way
out. Over the years there have been a few of those for me;
two attacks of optic neuritis, some sensory disruptions in my
hands – symptoms that have been present for a few weeks or
months and have then disappeared never (so far) to return.

And also so far, ibuprophen does the trick, dulling the pain
and reducing the spasms.

Happy Idiot that I am, I’ve been tempted to crow about how
MY pain is sooo not a big deal that I can easily defeat it with
over-the-counter medication.

 
However, I know of too many people with MS on Neurontin or
Lyrica.  Even a Happy Idiot can learn about hubris.