Back Pain

A Test Of Sanity And Faith

John O'Neill
2 min readJul 27, 2024

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How appropriate
That these words are both comprised of four letters
Which when combined are indeed a curse

Now simple tasks become major obstacles
Any movement is dreaded
Since an electric-like tear inducing jolt could be generated

Every motion needs to be planned out in advance
Getting in and out of a chair is almost paralyzing to contemplate
Anticipating sitting down to eat
Or going to the bathroom require major campaigns
With each step to be thoroughly mapped out
In the hope of at least lessening the impact
A battle plan that too often fails to achieve its desired end

Over the counter pain medication brings no relief
Not even temporary respite
While hesitant to seek stronger prescription pain medication
For fear of both becoming dependent
And of masking any true recovery
Lying down on my back is the only thing that helps

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John O'Neill

Retired human services executive, living in Massachusetts near Boston, trying to be a better human being each day than the day before.