By Carol J. Wechsler Blatter

Pain, before your arrival, I was spoiled. Not spoiled like a spoiled child, but like a naive adult who had almost always enjoyed good health. Suddenly and without permission, you came into my life accompanied with your companion, “High Anxiety.” (Name used here from the movie and song of the same name).

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Pain, I never knew you until last February when I had three spinal fractures. Two were repaired with a procedure called kyphoplasty, and one with an epidural. Since then, without mercy, you have brazenly locked down my gut.  

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Pain, your presence has forced me to face my age. At age eighty-two, I am old. Youth and middle age have left me, forever. Death will follow. I’m not ready to die.

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Pain, my life has been upended with your power to hurt me and frighten me every day. I am petite. I imagine you are huge. You are six feet five inches tall and at least sixty inches wide. I imagine that you have long arms, you are covered in black, and you are masked. I can’t see you, but I can feel you every day.

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Pain, you’ve settled yourself below my navel and around my waist, which you have stiffened with imaginary super glue, making it harder to breathe. You feel like a machine with two huge grabbers, one pinches me on my left side and another grabber pinches me on my right side. And I get squeezed between them without any relief.

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Pain, you prey on my helplessness. You are controlling my emotions. Fearing you, my anxiety rises to the top of a tower, and I am trapped inside.

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Pain, despite your efforts to dispense misery, there are times when I am upbeat. I remember how lucky I am to be alive, and I know I will get better. And I am so fortunate to have a granddaughter. When I talk to her, I forget about you.

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Pain, you anger me. I care about our plants.  You are selfish. You don’t care if our plants are watered and fertilized. Their lives mean nothing to you. Because of you I can’t bend to water and fertilize them. So my husband takes care of them until you leave my body.

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Pain, you have successfully interrupted things I enjoy doing, like having friends in for brunch and meeting them for plays and concerts. I miss baking brownies, pumpkin bread, and carrot cake.

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Pain, I am beginning to take control of you. I will continue to do relaxing exercises to manage you on a daily basis. I will continue to receive acupuncture treatments. I will dispose of the remaining pills meant to minimize your effects. I will enjoy the foods I couldn’t eat with you. I will regain my appetite, and I will eat normal-sized portions. I will begin gaining weight. My diet will no longer be limited to a daily chocolate energy drink, bran flakes with almond milk with slices of bananas, chicken soup broth, chicken soup with noodles and white rice. I look forward to enjoying veggie pizza on Sunday nights with my husband.

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What else will I do?

I will volunteer to help our local LD 18 Democratic Party. I will return to the book club monthly. I will go out to brunch with my husband and other friends. I will see live plays with him, and I will write stories pain-free. And if all goes well, perhaps we will go on a cruise.

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Pain, once you no longer reside in my body, I will go to synagogue on the Sabbath, and my Rabbi will recite these Hebrew blessings for me returning to good health:

Birkat HaGomel, a blessing traditionally recited upon recovering from illness or surviving a dangerous situation.:

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, ruler of the world, who rewards the undeserving with goodness, and who has rewarded me with goodness.”

And he will recite Psalm 30:3 for gratitude:

“O Lord my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.”

© 2025 Carol J. Wechsler Blatter

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, Jewish Literary Journal, Jewish Writing Project, New Millennium Writings, 101.org, and poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and a very proud grandmother, and a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice.