I have a friend with degenerative disk disease. We fell in friend-love because we have a lot in common: we’re both intelligent, snarky, music-loving folks who adore the sublimely silly. For a long, long time, we talked every day. When his pain became too bad, we’d hang up, he’d pop a pill or three, and he’d nap.
It was life as usual.
I didn’t realize how often–or how many–pills he took because his pain, while noticeable, was far higher than he ever led me to believe. Because he doesn’t live here, I didn’t see him on a daily basis hobbling through what few of his daily activities he could manage. Because he’s prideful, I had no idea how bad it had truly become.
He dropped off the face of the earth for a time–a very, very long time for someone who was concerned for him. He entered a dark phase, and didn’t come up for months. When he resurfaced, we talked about it, in bits and pieces. The pain had become so unmanageable that he had sunk into a deep depression, and every day he’d have to decide whether it was worth going on for. He was hopeless–he could not imagine a life better than the one he had. He felt that he had no value–he was no longer capable of adding value to the world.
He came out of the depression, mostly, but was still burdened by a level of physical pain that I cannot even imagine. He was not the same.
But then a miracle happened.
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