Michelle Chan Ballas
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1
I was 19 years old and excited to watch a gymnastic meet at my old high school with my best friend. After the meet ended, I was inspired to do a tumbling pass on the wooden gym floor. I knew immediately that I was not going to make the back tuck and within that split second, I tucked my head to my chin to brace my fall and to protect my neck. The wind got knocked out of me when I landed on my back and I was embarrassed and hoped no one saw that I did not complete my back tuck. My best friend saw me on the floor and asked me if I was lying down because I was tired. The first 5 seconds which felt like 15 minutes I could not move my legs and thought I landed on my neck and was paralyzed. Then the thought of an ambulance coming in and taking me out on a stretcher made me panic about the fuss and scene I would make. I vaguely remember getting up and getting in my car to drive home. When I got home, someone asked me how the meet was and then put their hand on top of my back and that is when I burst into tears and told one of my parents how much pain I was in. They took me to the emergency room at Newton Wellesley Hospital where I proceeded to be a brat about them wanting to cut my favorite sweater to get access to my neck.
At first, they could not see anything wrong with my x-rays but called in another doctor for a second opinion when they realized that I was having some shortness of breath. After a few hours it was determined that I had a compressed vertebrae fracture on my T9. It doesn’t seem like much but the 8% that it was compressed has led to 23 years of chronic pain. It started off as being an isolated pain in the general area but has progressed to being pain in my neck and my entire back. The new norm has become living life “numb” to the pain and getting chiropractor and acupuncture treatments to help manage the days when things don’t feel so “numb.”
2
You always hear people say, “suffer in silence” or as a former athlete “suck it up” and “no pain no gain.” I was never really quieted or ignored when I talked about my pain, (which I rarely do because of the mentality that I should really just suffer in silence) but I felt people judged me - that I was overreacting or dramatizing the extent of my pain (again better to suffer in silence).
The pain I have isn’t a pain that can be seen with the naked eye. I don’t have a gash on my back, and I don’t wear a brace. I am not hunched over as a result from a compressed vertebra. When you don’t see something physical that someone can equate to “oh yes, ouch that might hurt” I feel like it’s harder for them to understand the true nature of my pain.
I see the skepticism in people’s eyes when I tell them why I am being an angry irritable bitch. That sometimes the constant every day pain makes it feel like I have a ton of bricks resting on my upper back. That the weight I feel on my shoulders feels so heavy that I just want a break from the heaviness. That I am tired and it’s tiring to constantly feel like you are carrying bricks every day.
I’m not being ignored when I speak of my pain, but it's more that they dismiss the extent of my pain because they can’t physically see “hurt” on me.
3
In terms of pain medication, I grew up that we should not take a lot of medication especially for pain. When my neck is in a lot of pain, it can also trigger me to get really bad headaches. As soon as I was old enough to realize how wonderful Excedrin and Ibuprofen was, I would take them every time my neck pain triggered a headache. It got to the point that I could easily go through 2 Costco sized bottles of Excedrin every year. What I then learned was that a lot of my headaches were not from my neck pain, but they were rebound headaches. When I didn’t take Excedrin, I would get a really bad headache, so I was in a vicious cycle of not knowing if my headaches were from neck pain or from not taking Excedrin. I then made the choice of slowly trying to not be “dependent” on the Excedrin. It took awhile and it wasn’t pleasant but after a year or so I was no longer taking 2 Costco sized bottles a year.
What I chose was to not feel the need to be dependent on taking pain medication to control my pain. Instead, I have found alternative ways to help manage my pain. and I go to the chiropractor to manage the neck pain and the acupuncturist to maintain the back pain. I still will take Excedrin if it’s a migraine or if it’s so painful that I can’t get out of bed. I do not judge those who decide to take pain medication because I feel their pain. The only person feeling the pain is that person and they are the only ones who know how much pain they can tolerate. I do feel like it is no one’s business if they decide to, because if that person lived one day in that person’s pain they might think differently.