Monsoon of Pain

Summer of my junior year in college, I studied abroad to South Korea.   Here, I experienced what rain during monsoon season meant.  When it rained in New York, it ebbed and flowed during the day and week.  But that summer in Korea, when it rained, it rained hard and continuously, for days.  There was no relief from the pounding rain.  Similarly, the pain I experienced during the last eight months was complete, intense, and continuous.  There was absolutely no break from the pain.

Nothing prepared me for how this would be like day to day.  The attack was complete in the sense that Lupus attacked every part of my body from head to toe, save my earlobes and my kidney.  Internally, it attacked my brain, heart, lungs, digestive system, reproductive system, nervous system, bones and muscles.  Outwardly, it attacked my skin, my eyes, mouth, teeth, nose, ears and nails.  The pain that came from these attacks was indescribable.  It was hard to isolate the pain as well since I was being attacked in so many places all at once.  It was like being beat up by a mob and not being able to tell who was attacking you and where.  The pain was so intense that tears would well up and I would cry for hours.  One of these symptoms, for example, muscle pain would be enough to make a person miserable.  But to have everything go wrong, all at the same time, was just too much.

And the words to describe these symptoms do not do it justice.  "Muscle pain" is not like the pain one normally experiences when they have sore muscles.  This is burning pain.  It is as if a roller is continuously going through your body flattening out burning coals after your have ran about 100 miles.  This was just one of about hundred things that was wrong with my body.  I experienced the kind of pain that should only last about a few hours, maybe a day or two, for eight continuous months.  That is about 240 days or 5,760 hours, give or take.

I did not think it was possible for someone to be this sick for this long.

I would fantasize about death as a means of relief since nothing else, not strong painkillers, chemo, steroids or even sleep, would give me any sort of respite.  I have finally broke out of being this ill all the time, and am now experiencing four stages of pain - very ill, ill, very sick and sick.  It's not much but when I feel "just sick", I feel some relief.  I am hoping to add "not sick" and "well" to these stages at some point.  Hopefully soon.  I could use the rainbow that comes after all the rain.