this isn't meant to be depressing. but I suspect it is.
So here's a little piece of characterization for folks that write John Watson, or Greg House, or Marcus Aquila, or any characters with consistent, variable-strength pain.
The scariest part of constantly being in pain is the moment you stop noticing it. Your pain tolerance ratchets up, because your baseline has already moved above normal. You start to compensate for the malfunction of your body and you start to only notice when something's really fucked up, when you've wrenched your knee the wrong way or something's swollen or you lose range of motion. As the years go by you lose the ability to distinguish the new gradation of pain, most especially wherever the pain has originated from, and in a way the source of the problem becomes an almost alien part of your body--something that's not happening to you but apart from you, something you witness with a curtain drawn between.
The sudden onset cessation of pain is the best drug in the world. This is why House is addicted to vicodin (apart from its own addictive qualities). It is bliss. Nirvana. Any cliched word to describe unadulterated happiness can be applied to that moment that you are suddenly without pain and be true.
And then comes the moment when you realize exactly how much pain you were in, to feel this good from the simple absence thereof, and the deep-seated fear arrives again. Cycle over, and over, and over, and that is life with pain.
The scariest part of constantly being in pain is the moment you stop noticing it. Your pain tolerance ratchets up, because your baseline has already moved above normal. You start to compensate for the malfunction of your body and you start to only notice when something's really fucked up, when you've wrenched your knee the wrong way or something's swollen or you lose range of motion. As the years go by you lose the ability to distinguish the new gradation of pain, most especially wherever the pain has originated from, and in a way the source of the problem becomes an almost alien part of your body--something that's not happening to you but apart from you, something you witness with a curtain drawn between.
The sudden onset cessation of pain is the best drug in the world. This is why House is addicted to vicodin (apart from its own addictive qualities). It is bliss. Nirvana. Any cliched word to describe unadulterated happiness can be applied to that moment that you are suddenly without pain and be true.
And then comes the moment when you realize exactly how much pain you were in, to feel this good from the simple absence thereof, and the deep-seated fear arrives again. Cycle over, and over, and over, and that is life with pain.