This year has been a crash course in mortality, and I’m barely getting a passing grade.

My brain, and the body that follows it, doesn’t realize things have changed. That I’m farther away from death now. That the pain I’m feeling is damage, not danger. So I have to find a way to get the message across to that lump of sponge in my skull. It’s damage, not danger.

My brain isn’t so easily convinced. 

It is a good brain, and has served me well for 48 years. When it was surrounded by dozens of tumors floating in the fluid inside my skull, it was somehow able to resist the sticky tentacles of a roaming cancer that was multiplying in my unchecked body. I was there when it realized how much worse it could have been if my treatments had started with radiation. It recoiled with fear and disgust. 

I’ve been able to trust my brain so far in this traumatic turn of events, but that relationship has changed in the past few months.

The reality: my PET scan and MRIs showed no new cancer growth, so I was left with the question, “Why had my pain been increasing? If it wasn’t cancer, what was it?” 

The mystery became deeper when my neck pains were validated by a scary MRI result. The first specialist I saw said all was stable, so I got another opinion. Well, the first guy was right, but the second guy said there was something to be done about the pain. That there are structural reasons for what I’m feeling. That it’s damage, not danger.

How do I get that through my thick skull?

My brain doesn’t accept that the alarm is false. That my spine is so complicated and I’ll probably always have pinched nerves and compressed vertebrae. 

My neck and shoulders respond to the alarm by tightening up, by guarding the spinal cord and vertebrae from further degradation or threat. Sure, I’m thankful that It’s doing what it is supposed to be doing; it’s tensed and bracing for movement, for impact, or for the potential of a neck unable to hold up the weight on top. But, brain, please let up!

I should be familiar with suffering, after all, much of thru-hiking can be explained by a willingness to suffer. We accept blisters on blisters on blisters. We accept bruised hip bones and gnawing hunger that comes from eating more than you should on day three of a six-day food carry. But it’s the suffering from a brain/body disconnect that I am dealing with now. 

The good news? 

There are some medical interventions that I’ll be trying soon. 

The bad news? 

I will probably have to learn how to live with some of the pain. 

I remember one time, when I was on a hike in the rain, and was ok getting wet because I knew the day would end. I knew I would be dry on the other end. I was open to being slightly uncomfortable because  I knew it would end, so that allowed me to be open to the moment. Yes, I got splashed with water, yes, my coat would be a task to dry out, but did you see that beaver swimming through the raindrops?? Did you see the clouds hanging over the mountains??

It would be quite lovely to know the pain would end. Very lovely indeed.