My Life is a Miracle

12 My Life Is a Miracle pain. I allowed myself to increase the dose a lit- tle to help on this journey. Without this other medicinal two-faced friend, it would truly be insupportable. Twelve hours lying in that roll- ing railway oven was exhausting, even if you manage, as always, to put up with the pain. Pain? What pain? I was sixty-nine years old at the time. I’d been battling this disease for forty-two years. It had started when I was twenty-seven with lower back pains. This end- ed in cauda equina syndrome, which is a poly- radicular attack of the lumbar and sacral base. But I don’t want to clobber you with all the medical terms. I’ll tell you about it in more detail, but what it amounts to in practice is semi-paralysis. My left foot was in an almost completely backward position. My back, spine, and pelvis were like jelly. They were supported by a rigid cervical-lumbar corset, which didn’t stop my body from aching, from electric shocks shooting through my legs, or from chronic sci- atic pain. I was on a high dose of morphine to ease the burning of these invisible thorns. In the end, the raw sharpness of the pain became so unbearable I had a spinal neuro-stimulator im- planted under the skin. Suffice it to say, I was in a bad way. Motionless at night in my room in Bresles, I relive this trip, for in my mind I’m still in