All the hurting people… where do they all come from

There is a 67 year old man on the third floor of my apartment building who’s small framed and trim, but walks with crutches.  If you greet him, he’ll tell you in one breath he was a tv cable man for 40 years, and then angrily exclaim he’s in constant, severe pain from his right foot.  He’s unable to walk on it and his useless doctors won’t prescribe more effective pain medication, and he deserves better treatment.

On the first floor is a 58 year old woman who is short, round, outgoing and personable. But her spine is fused to her hip and it sometimes puts her in great pain.  When it does, she disappears for a number of days or even a couple of weeks, and that’s when you know she’s hurting.  She keeps a mini-fridge beside her bed for her ‘quiet times’ (what she calls it).

A 79 year old woman named Joan lives on the fifth floor and is a little hard of hearing, but otherwise fine.  But her 55 year old son Mike isn’t. He visits her twice a week for lunch, walks very slowly with one hand always clutching his lower stomach and talks to no one.  Joan says he had a section of his lower intestine removed in his forties, and several follow-up operations since then.

On the second floor is a 48 year old woman who suffers from a variety of maladies.  One side of her face droops from an operation she had 20 years ago for a seizure disorder.  She still has them.  She has several large scars on her arms and neck from bouts of skin cancer (and boasts about each one, proud of her battle scars).  She drinks a lot, and has been picked up by the police on numerous occasions for public intoxication.  But they know her and are kind, and bring her home and ask her to be more careful.

And then there’s the 57 year old man on the fourth floor, who is living with chronic TMJD, an inflammatory jaw disorder.   He had an operation for kidney stones last December, and during the 2-3 hour procedure his anesthesiologist wrenched his sleeping jaw back & forth while monitoring his breathing tube.   He awoke with pulled tendons in his masseters.  (He warned the doc beforehand he suffered with a jaw disorder 18 months prior, and could only open his mouth halfway.  She dismissed his concerns with a warm smile and “you’ll be fine, you’ll be asleep”.)

For as much as his tmj has troubled him (he’s written about it on his blog enough) he’s downplayed the condition to himself, sure that it would heal in a couple of months.  He ignored recommendations from other TMJ sufferers to stop talking and make his diet a soft & liquid one.  He was just angry and tired of dealing with it again, and wanted to chat like nothing was wrong and eat regular food and be his normal self. 

After months of no relief, and his ability to talk & chew food grows more painful & difficult, he’s facing reality now.  He’s been on a liquid diet for a couple days, and isn’t giving up hopes of feeling less blue again.