Posted by Paco (204.111.24.181) on August 11, 2001 at 18:09:12:
...I have felt guilt that I am pain free, when I read the anguished posts of suffering. Then, I realize that I have suffered that same unique, exquisite torture, unbearable but with no other choice. I am in awe that we make it through the worst attacks. Clusters hit me when I was 42. Until then, I thought I could handle pain better than most. I have been run over by a taxi cab, crushed my thumb in a car door, been cut deeply more than once, got whacked in the head with a beer bottle, broke my nose against a windshield, and even lived through some nutty broad kicking me in the shins. I believe I have a fairly high threshold for pain, but I live in fear of Kip - 10's. I don't think I could live through another Kip - 10. I'm PF for 22 months, and the shadows are there almost every day now. Still, I know how very fortunate I am amongst cluster sufferers. Here's the point to all this rambling. I think that the most important thing we must do when not in pain, is to enjoy every minute of life to the fullest. It's especially hard for us to do that, because we know what the rest of us are going through. That's the point: If we don't enjoy the PF time to the max, then we are losers. We are letting this thing fuck our lives. I am convinced, if you can manage to get beyond our condition, you owe it to all the others still in pain to enjoy that time to its fullest. Oh, and you need to work for OUCH.