What happens when someone is in pain but can no longer tell us? A week of nerve pain has forced me to confront that question.

For most of the last six years I have lived with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). Like many people with chronic illness, I have become accustomed to discomfort. Fatigue, balance problems, swallowing difficulties, loss of independence and a long list of frustrations have gradually become part of everyday life. They are unwelcome companions, but familiar ones.

For the last few days, nerve pain suddenly became the centre of my world as my leg was invaded by severe pain. It occupied my thoughts during the day and interrupted my sleep at night. It narrowed my focus and demanded my attention. The medication is beginning to work now and I hope the worst is behind me. But the experience left me thinking about a subject that, if I am honest, I had never fully understood before.

I thought I understood pain.

I now realise that I understood discomfort far better than I understood suffering.

Suddenly many of the problems I usually complain about seemed smaller. I found myself longing for what I would previously have described as a bad PSP day. I would happily have traded the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)