According to James Davies, Author of The Importance of Suffering, a negative view of suffering, which labeled all suffering as harmful and should be avoided, arose in the 1980's. It was then that the medical community decided that emotional suffering, like physical suffering, comes from a biological process and should be treated the same as physical suffering; with medications. And so it began, whenever you have a problem, you can fix it with a pill. Now we are coming to a point in medicine that whenever you have a problem we can fix it with surgery. The practice of treating patients solely with medication or surgery has devalued the importance of exploring any of the other possible causes of people's suffering, such as psychosocial, spiritual and other implications of human distress. I believe this lack of exploration and accountability has enabled people completely. What bothers me the most is that the healthcare system benefits financially from the exploitation of people's suffering. According to James Davies "when individuals are unable to understand and manage their own suffering, they become vulnerable to certain authorities who claim to have the knowledge and expertise to help" (pg 74); making it easier for hospitals to market their "new and improved" surgical techniques to patients with the promise of taking all their suffering away. I am not saying that all patients can solve their own problems and should never rely on the expertise of their physician, but I do think the majority of the patient's I take care of can benefit from a little suffering and self exploration.
Some of you may think, "this crazy nurse just lets people rile in pain all night." I bet some of my patients would agree with you. There comes a point in my job where I have to decide whether or not the pain medicine I give you is going to benefit or harm you. Let me share with you the factors I include in my pain assessment and what you should expect when you are having pain in the hospital.
- For a majority of the patient population I can tell you now that we cannot take away all of your pain. There comes a time in the hospital when someone will ask you what level of pain is tolerable for you from 0-10, with 10 being the worst you have ever felt. If you tell me you cannot tolerate absolutely any pain (meaning your tolerance will be a 0) than I will most likely tell you this is unrealistic. With all surgical procedures, acute illnesses and well life in general there is going to be some kind of pain. The best thing for you to do is come up with a plan, with the help of your doctor and nurse, on how you are going to deal with this pain.
- If you tell me you are experiencing 10/10 pain but you cannot keep your eyes open for more than 10 seconds or hold a conversation with me, I will not give you more pain medicine. This my friends is for your own safety. If I were to give you pain meds in this state, there is a good chance you might end up a statistic. You see, most pain medications cause your breathing to slow down. In some instances your breathing can stop, leading to a respiratory arrest and possibly death. At this point we would have to find an alternative like hot/cold packs, re positioning, dimming the lights, etc...
- If you are a person who has chronic pain and is dependent on multiple pain meds at home, this does not change because you are in the hospital. Many times you are experiencing what we like to call acute on chronic pain which means that you now have something else causing you pain on top of what has already been ailing you. It is especially important that I know your tolerable pain level and what you do at home to manage your pain. If you are taking pain pills every hour I can tell you now that we cannot do that for you in the hospital; we have to follow guidelines. We will do our best to take care of your acute pain while managing your chronic pain but we cannot take it all away.
- If you think that sleeping your hospital stay away will make your life easier, you are wrong. Just like in life, anesthetizing all your suffering only leads to what we like to call secondary suffering. If you are so sedated that you cannot get up and walk around, feed yourself, take deep breaths, go to the bathroom and so on..., there will be other complications that come around. A lot of patients develop pneumonia from over sedation, muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing, and prolonged hospital stays.
- We do not want our patients to have a bad experience in the hospital. We will do our best to make you feel comfortable and not afraid. Everything we do whether you like it or not is for your own safety. It is for your own safety that we have reasonable expectations surrounding pain management.
Allowing yourself to experience pain can provide you with insight that could possibly change your life. Chest pain associated with a heart attack may be a reminder to yourself to put down that cigarette; the pain of a kidney stone may remind you to drink more water; withdrawing from alcohol (if you remember it) may prevent that next drink. Suffering provides us with an opportunity to change our lives. Depression forces us to want to be alone, to over analyze, to question ourselves. It provides us with the opportunity to change our situation. Pain is a sign from our body that something is wrong. Maybe we need to slow down and take it easy, maybe we are eating food that is causing us discomfort, maybe our lifestyle choices such as smoking or drinking are causing us emotional and physical pain. Whatever ails you, there is a reason. Instead of anesthetizing the pain with medications, alcohol or drugs, dig deep and ask yourself "why am I feeling this way." We have the answers to most of our questions; we have intuition; we know ourselves better than anyone else. Instead of turning to drugs, alcohol or your doctor, try turning to yourself.
