Chronic Pain & His Constant Presence - A Testimony

The following is something I asked my dad, Geoff Oswald (picture below) to write about his recent 2 year journey through chronic pain. Thanks dad.

- Chris


The National Center for Health Statistics defines the term “chronic” as a condition of three months duration or longer. The term also carries the sense of a disease or condition showing little change or very slow progression over a long period.

I had what could be called a chronic “bad back” for years. But my condition took a decided “turn for the worse” after working in my yard one summer day. Just that quickly, my pain went from a degree that could be managed with over-the-counter pain medicine, rest and a heating pad, to the point where I was unable to stay in any one position for more than a hour.

My pain originated in the center of my back. On the now all-too-familiar scale of 1 to 10 that a chronic pain sufferer tires of using, mine was about an eight most of the time, but every few days its severity increased a step or two for no apparent reason, to the point of making me almost frantic, and unable to tolerate – well, almost anything or anyone.

Only rarely, and again -- for no apparent reason, did it ever drop below 5 or 6.
Even at that lower level, I was unable to sleep in bed more than an hour or so before the pain forced me to get up and try to get some sleep in a chair. Then, before no more than a couple more hours had passed, the pain would force me from the chair, and either back to bed for a short time to toss and turn, or pacing around through the house.

I quickly came to dread the early morning hours when I had to begin getting ready to go to work. I was exhausted, barely able to function at work, and barely able to get any recuperative rest at home. To put in mildly, I was absolutely miserable, all of the time. And that was before the pain began radiating down my lower back, down my buttocks, and into my legs.

Before too many days had passed, my doctor prescribed heavy-duty pain killers. The kind you can get addicted to. The kind people chop holes through pharmacy roofs late at night to get at. When my body began to get used to them and they had a lesser effect on my pain, the doctor would prescribe a different one. Within three months or so, I was taking what I called a “daily rotation” of four different pain “killers” every four hours, all day and night. I never exceeded the prescribed dosage, but because of the pain, I always considered doing so every time I took the cap off the medicine bottle. I knew they were dangerous, and I had all the trouble I could handle already.

Although I never grew accustomed to the pain, as the days stretched into months, I realized I was learning how to function with it, or to accomplish a very limited set of my usual daily tasks. The pain was still there, but the drugs made me care less about it. My attendance record at work began to reflect my growing use of vacation and sick leave. But thanks, in part, to a very understanding supervisor and department manager, I continued to work.

The loss of recuperative sleep for weeks on end, combined with incessantly distracting pain and the stupefying effect of the prescription drugs made it impossible for me to maintain my job performance at the usual level.

Part of my job is to fill out a check register every morning. Fairly early in the chronology of my ordeal with chronic pain, it dawned on me as I sat at my desk that I was no longer able to read a six-digit number and then immediately write it out in the check register. Instead, I read and the wrote the check numbers and dollar amounts out digit by digit, having to read and re-read the numbers one by one.

I’ve almost always enjoyed my job, and taken pride in doing it well. And so my condition was all-the-more distressing and disgusting to me. I fought depression pretty much every day. When I began to feel sorry for myself, or to feel like giving up, I tried to “change my mind” by thinking of my family, my church, familiar hymns, and so forth, instead of the pain.

My faith in Jesus Christ grew, and I began to develop a deeper appreciation for his abiding, strengthening presence right there with me every day, even through the stupor of the drugs and exhaustion. One afternoon at work, a thought began to rise in my foggy mind and slowly took shape: It was Friday! God had helped me make it through another five day work week! This blurry realization buoyed me and gave me a shot of much-needed optimism and hope.

An E-mail from Voice of the Martyrs arrived just when I need to reflect as best I could on how, down through the centuries, men and women, boys and girls have been forced to endure pain much worse than mine, as well as trials and tribulation of unimaginable kinds. And even today, Christians are accompanied by the enabling, strengthening Holy Spirit through beatings, imprisonment and the threat of death.

I’ve often marveled at the thought that – as long as there’s even just the dimmest spark of hope, we feeble human beings who “are but dust” can pull through the darkest of circumstances. And that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. Jesus Christ, and the knowledge of His love provided that spark of hope for me, just when I needed it most.

I once heard someone say (or I read somewhere) that no matter how good, or how bad things may be, things will not always be the way they are now. If you’re going through a terrible trial of some kind, better days are ahead. If you’re enjoying those better days right now, a trial of some sort may be right around the corner. God only knows. But through good times and bad, Jesus is there with us.

My pain-filled days and nights wound up dragging on for more than 18 months before a grueling and risky six-hour surgery provided relief. I remember the morning of my surgery very clearly: My wife and our oldest son drove the three of us to the hospital before sunrise. We made our way through the admissions process, and on up to the surgery floor. Before long my name was called and I was ushered into a small room where I was helped out of my street clothes and into a hospital gown by nurses and technicians. I was still in great pain, but I was enjoying an amazing, very real peace that I just can’t find the words to adequately describe.

This peace was actually an unreasonable peace, by the world’s standards. You see, just the day before, I had been given a routine, pre-admission EKG. As soon as it was finished, the technician looked at the jagged lines trailing along the paper, then looked at me and asked me if I was feeling alright. I told her I felt fine, except for my back and leg pain. She decided to replace all the test “leads” (wires) on my chest, wrists and ankles with another set, and – after having done so, reran the test. As soon as it finished, she again turned to me and asked if I was sure I was feeling okay. “No chest pain or trouble breathing?” “No”, I told her, “but I don’t think I can keep laying there much longer.”

She told me to “stay put” just a few more minutes, and left the room like she was late for lunch saying she needed to go get a doctor. Just as she got outside the room I heard her tell a nurse to come in and “watch me”. Obviously something was wrong. And yet instead of being alarmed or upset, I became aware of a strangely full, enveloping sense of peace. It was so real it was almost as if I could actually touch peace.

Soon the EKG tech returned with a different EKG machine are reran the test a third time, but still with the same results. She helped me up off the cot, and after I put my shirt and shoes back on, she put the paperwork and EKG strips from all three tests in my hand and told me to go straight to a particular doctors office there in the hospital.

I did, and – still feeling no worse than I had for months, I gave the receptionist there my name. Before I even had a chance to make it over to a chair in the waiting room, a nurse called my name and led me back to another exam room where she proceeded to give me yet another EKG. While this fourth test was still running, she looked at me and asked if I was having any chest pain or shortness of breath. “No, the only pain I have is in my back and legs. That’s what I want to have surgery for tomorrow.” “Well,” she said, “it’s possible the doctor might want to postpone your back surgery for a while. He’ll be right in.”, she said. And he was! (I’ve never seen things move so quickly in a doctor’s office.)

This doctor, a cardiologist, I learned, was a very kind, very friendly man, and within only a few minutes I felt like we’d been friends for years. I was impressed how carefully he looked over each of the EKG strips, stopping several times to measure some of the jagged lines with a little ruler and compare them to the lines on the other strips.

“Are you feeling alright?”, he asked. “Yes.” “No pain?… shortness of breath… pressure… no jaw pain… nothing like that?” “No, but this is my fourth EKG in the span of about an hour and I’m beginning to feel a unique pain in my rear end!” He laughed, and then told me what all the fuss was about; “You have atrial fib. I’m surprised you’re feeling okay.” By now his warm, outgoing demeanor had been replaced by a studied silence, and the friendly look was gone from his face.

“Can I still have back surgery tomorrow?”, I asked. Without answering, he took one more long look at one of the strips, then pulled his stethoscope out of his coat pocket and held it to my chest.

This is the only time I began to feel just a little anxious. “Am I going to be able to have surgery tomorrow?” In the absence of a quick reply I pressed for his decision; “I really need that surgery…”

I appreciated him taking time to make the best decision, but I was beginning to worry; not that I had a heart problem, but that my back surgery was going to be delayed and I would have to live who-knows-how-long with all the pain! (I guess that’s how you know your pain is playing too big a part in your life; when you’re more concerned with it than with the possible onset of heart trouble!)

Finally, after yet-another annoying pause, he said, "I think you'll be alright during the surgery" (emphasis his). He explained that my heart wasn’t pumping as effectively and regularly as it should be, and that the condition can precede the “sudden onset of a potentially life-threatening condition” and that as soon after surgery as I was able, he wanted me to see him again or another cardiologist. A few minutes later I left his office with a “green light” for back surgery.

And so, bright and early the following morning, as I was prepped for surgery, my spine surgeon came in dressed in scrubs and explained the surgery to me one more time. It was the same rundown he went through a couple of times before in his office, of how he planned to fix as many things as he could. This time, though, he followed it up by saying that my heart problem presented an additional risk that things might not turn out the way we hoped, and he asked if I still wanted to go ahead. “Yes, we’ll be fine.” “Okay”, he said, “I’ll see you in a few minutes and we’ll get started.” And with that we shook hands and he left the room.

A nurse reappeared, started an IV and then left to go get my wife and son. I think it was at that point that we shared a brief prayer, asking God to work through the doctor and to grant me relief from the pain that had dominated my life for almost two years. I kissed my wife, shook hands with my son, and they left the room.

As I lay there alone, staring up at the ceiling, I remember like it was just yesterday feeling so thankful, and so confident that if God did permit something to go wrong during the surgery I would actually wake up in heaven, and I had no doubt about it whatsoever. The peace I felt was both remarkable and unforgettable. It was then, before they rolled my stretcher out of the room toward the operating room, that the melodious refrain of an old, familiar hymn by Walter S. Davis began floating through my mind:

“God will take care of you,

Through every day, over all the way;

He will take care of you,

God will take care of you.”

Is Jesus really “alive”, as we hear Christians proclaim from time to time? Yes! He was there, carrying me through hour after hour, day after day of blinding pain when I was too weak, too tired, too confused to even acknowledge His presence or pray coherently. He was there with me at work, moving my supervisor, I believe, to patiently do all the work I was unable to do those many months. He was there with me every time I was admitted to the hospital, protecting me from mistakes and infection. He was there with me, working, watching, guiding intently every minute of my surgery. He was there blessing us financially in surprising ways when the pay checks stopped. And He has been with me through my months-long recovery, helping me deal with the muscle weakness, helping me learn how to get around at home and in public in a wheelchair, and every minute since.

Some six months following the surgery I was able to begin reducing the amount of pain medicine I had taken so much of for so long, and return to work (two hours a day, to begin with, in a wheel chair). Now, over a year after surgery, I’ve finished physical therapy and regained most of the strength in my legs.

Other, unrelated medical problems requiring another surgery (this time on an ankle and foot) returned me to the wheelchair for a time, but I’m back on my feet now and working full-time again. With God’s help I avoided developing an addiction to the prescription pain killers and sleeping pills I had to take for a total of almost two years.

I know other Christians who have gone through serious, even life-threatening illnesses that stretched on for months, and – like me, they willingly attest to how God used their illnesses; even their chronic pain, to lovingly draw them closer to Him, and how He gently showered them with blessings through it all, some of which they were only able to recognize afterwards; “on the other side” of their ordeals.

Take care to nurture and enjoy a growing, meaningful, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And should you find yourself someday facing a serious, painful illness or other seemingly insurmountable challenge in your life, take heart; Jesus cares for you! And He’ll be with you all the way.