Headline July 17, 2017/ ''' PAIN IN PAIN '''

''' PAIN IN PAIN '''

*ZILLI, AS  I HAVE  SO OFTEN OBSERVED : for every time sure, has an all time favourite and an overpowering question for me : 

''How would you rate over all these many years, the   contributions  and sacrifices-  of the students of *Proud Pakistan*  on Sam Daily Times :   The Voice Of The Voiceless ?. 

'* Well,  Zilli,  No different than the contribution and sacrifices of the students of the entire world!'. I counter back.   Smart I may may not  be, but very effective I have always been* 

And in my private world, I never forget to  thank goodness, for not letting and allowing,  great Zilli, to rub this into me!   Being an incurable optimist with a very sunny nature, I beam away: 

''No two days are ever the same!''  

ON A SCALE OF  1 TO 10 how would you rate your pain? Would you say it aches, or would you say it stabs?  Does it burn or does it pinch?

How long would you say you've been hurting? And are you taking anything for it?

Steven Pete, a  *student of pain*,    has no idea how you feel. Sitting in Cassava, a cafe in Longview, Washington, next a bulletin board crammed with flyers and promises -

*Your Pain Free Tomorrow Starts Tomorrow ; Remember : You are not  Alone in your battle against  Neuropathy! 

He tells me  he cannot  fathom aches  or  pinches or the searing scourge of peripheral neuropathy that keeps millions of people awake at night or hooked on pills.

He was born with a  rare    neurological condition called congenital insensitivity*  to pain, and for 36 years he has hovered at  or near a  1 on the pain scale.

He's 5'8'' , with glasses and thinning brown hair, and he has a road map of scars across his body, mostly beneath a  T-shirt bearing the partial crests of Batman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Superman.

Because he never learned to avoid injury, which is the one thing pain is really good for, he gets injured a lot. When I ask how many bones he's broken, he lets out a quick laugh.

''oh, gosh, I haven't actually done the count yet,'' he says. ''But somewhere probably around 70  or 80.''

With each fracture, he didn't feel much of anything.   -or even notice his injury at all. Whether he saw a doctor depended on how bad the break appeared to be.

''A toe or a finger, I'd just take care of that myself,'' he says, wagging a slightly bent index finger. ''Duct tape.''  

What about something more serious? Pete pauses for a moment and recalls a white Washington day a few years ago.

''We had a thick snow, and we went  inner-tubing  down a hill. Well, I did a scorpion, where you take a running start and jump on the tube. You're supposed to land on your stomach, but I hit at the wrong angle.

I face-planted on the hill, and my back legs just went straight up over my head.'' Pete got up and returned to tubing, and for the next eight months he went on as usual, until he started noticing the movement in his left arm and shoulder felt off.

His back felt funny too. He ended up getting an MRI. 

''The doctor looked at my MRI results, and he was like, '' Have you been in a car accident? About six months ago? Were you skydiving?'''

'''I haven't done either,'' Pete replied.

The doctor stared at his patient in disbelief. ''You've got three broken vertebrae. Pete had broken his back.

Throughout his body today, Pete has a strange feeling, '' a weird radiating sensation,'' as he describes it. He and others born with his condition have been compared to    *superheroes*   -indomitable, unbreakable.

In his basement, where the shelves are lined with videogames about biologically and technologically enhanced soldiers, there is even a framed sketch of character in full body armor, with the words:

Painless Pete.

But Pete knows best, ''There's no way I could live a normal life right now if I could actually feel pain,'' he says.

He would probably be constrained to a bed or wheelchair from all the damage his body has sustained.

His wife, Jessica, joins us at the cafe.  She is petite and shy with  ice-blue eyes traced in black eyeliner.  When I ask her what's it like to live with a man who feels no pain, she sighs. ''I worry about him all the time.''

She worries about him working with his power tools in the basement. She worries about him cooking over a grill. She worries about bigger things too.

''If he has a heart attack, he won't able to feel it,'' she says. ''He'll rub his arm sometimes, and I freak out :  Áre  you  OK?'  

She looks over at Pete, who chuckles. ''He thinks it's funny,'' she says. ''I don't think it's funny.''

Pam Costa lives an hour and a half from Pete, outside Tacoma, Washington  and she occupies the other end of the pain scale.

Costa is 51 and girlish, with  shoulder length  auburn hair and a wide smile. At first glance, she has the rosy flush of someone who has spent time in the sun.

But if you look closer at her cheeks,  her feet, and her legs, they bear traces of deeper shades of plum.

Everywhere there is plum,  there is pain.

She was born with a rare neurological condition called erythromelalgia......... .................

The Honour and Serving of the latest  ''Operational Research'' on physical sufferings and Lord Almighty God's  mercy continues. Please share forward.

With respectful dedication and with prayers for Mercy for all and every pain, Patients, sufferers, Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the World, 

See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society and..... Twitter-!E-WOW!   the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Future & Eternity '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless