plumbing the heights and scaling the depths

A dull, numb, lightly throbbing pressure behind the eyeballs; a leaden ache above the eyebrows; a general sense of hollowness within the skull and torso – the kind of discomfort that it is so difficult to express. Today, this has taken pole position against the competing sharper, sometimes excruciating, pains and discomfort emanating from the sciatic nerve.

It’s extremely difficult to formulate a table of aches, pains and discomfort; how does a constant low key gnawing, of a bruising kind, compare to an experience of an acute electric shock? Can numbness in any way be correlated with a more instantly sharply stinging sensation?

What does one express on a visit to the GP?

In my case it’s always the (perhaps transient) currently preoccupying dis-ease that is foremost in the more general catalogue of sensations; the ongoing symptoms of a chronic condition are rarely raised. These (permanent) discomforts are always least apparent when one has the physical and emotional stamina required to make, or permit my beloved to make, the appointment in the first place. I am fortunate with my GP’s, that they generally give me the time necessary to make the point but, even so, there are always the omnipresent discomforts that I don’t want to bother them with.

I suppose that the recent disabling excruciating pain, caused by a herniated disc, so overshadowed my regular discomforting companions that, had I been able to overlook the surface anguish, I could have imagined myself as being in the best of health.

The snow, outside of course, reflects the sunshine’s dazzling glare around the sitting room; my eyes ache from this glorious assault. The gas fire is turned up high but, the cold shudders, which I’m experiencing, strive to deny the fact.