It’s as if pain is shrinking my brain

There may even be some scientific evidence for it, but I think chronic pain, or more likely, the medication I’m taking for the pain, is slowly making mush of my brain.

I’m certainly more drowsy than in the past and that is a definite side effect of the pills, but what I feel much of the time is more than drowsiness, almost as if there is a void where my brain used to be. There are days when I sit down to write and I can’t think of anything to say. I sit down to read, and nothing sinks in. I end up watching repeats of The Big Bang Theory, which at least has the advantage of distracting me from the pain as well as killing time.

I try to think or write and it’s like turning the ignition key to start the car and nothing happens. Or the engine heaves and splutters before slowly cranking into life.

It frightens me because I never had a problem expressing an opinion or being creative in the good old days before my back gave out and my life ground to a halt. I had no problem putting together a homily or posting a witty comment on Twitter. Now I try to think of things to say and nothing enters my head. I want to comment on issues of the day but come up empty.

All I like to do is sleep because then I enter a pain-free realm, a world of the unconscious where there is no suffering or struggle simply to stay alive and interested and focused.

Author: frommypulpit

I'm a Redemptorist preacher and writer, with an interest in history, politics, and sport, who is living with chronic back pain. View all posts by frommypulpit