A year and a half ago, I was rushed to the emergency room with severe abdominal pain.
Earlier that night, my mother, and 24 year old sister had gone to a barbecue party with drinking and such. I elected to stay behind and babysit my four year old niece. An hour after she had fallen asleep, I was watching T.V. when the muscles in my stomach began to feel...strange. At first it wasn't painful, it felt like my muscles were constricting, but then very suddenly and very fast the sensation grew to become the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It felt as if something, right underneath ribs was screaming in agony. As if every molecule, every atom were trying to rip away from everything else. I could feel this sharp pain not in stomach but all around it. It wasn't cramps, I'd had those before, wrong area, wrong feeling. Confused, scared, and in pain, I had no idea what to do.
I was alone and babysitting my niece, no one in my family answered there phones as most were at a party or I didn't have their number. Eventually a family friend answered their phone and drove me to the hospital.
By the time I saw the doctor over four hours after the pain started all traces of pain were gone. The doctors assumed it was either an ovarian sis or gastritis. We still aren't sure.
The other night the same pain came back again. This time it only lasted for half an hour but the damage was done.
I had hoped that whatever happened before was a one time thing. When it suddenly and inexplicably came back again I was terrified. Why was this happening? What does it mean? The scariest thing you can experience in this world is to be in unimaginable pain and have no idea why it's happening to you. You wonder if you're going to die. You tell yourself that's mellow-dramatic but then you can't convince yourself why it's ridiculous to think so. You wonder if it's serious. You wonder what will happen next. And all of these thoughts can only rush at you in the moments you block the pain.
While I'm using one specific experience as an example, the feeling of pain causes the same emotions in everyone.
There are so few things in our control in this universe and we like to think that our body is one of them. In reality its probably the thing we have the least control and understanding of. We're supposed to be able to control our actions, thoughts, and feelings. So how utterly panicking and frustrating can it be when your arm won't stop twitching or you can't concentrate long enough to answer 2+2? And terror of all terrors, imagine being in immense pain, and not understanding, not being to stop or comprehend why. We grasp at straws, we seek those who would tell us the answer. Doctors, Priests, Healers, Soothsayers, when desperate enough, people will go to the ends of earth to find the answer, to stop the pain. The most basic instinct imprinted upon us at the moment of conception, is to avoid pain. Everything the human race has achieved, every invention, every conquest, is in one way or another, tied back to avoiding pain.
Physical, and emotional. Why do we cry? Why when we are lonely, sad, hurt, angry, happy-do we cry? What does it mean? Why, when we are overwhelmed with emotion do our bodies suddenly feel the need to moisturize the eyes?
We are only scratching the surface when it comes to human anatomy. We must answer these questions, it's programmed from the start of life, finding knowledge, finding answers, this is the quest we all are given, and the one quest we never finish until we die.
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