Strength Is Not the Absence of Pain. By Dusty Wentworth
What does a man do when his body turns traitor—when his voice vanishes, his muscles shake, and the only strength left is the will to endure? This is my life with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND)—a battle fought not on foreign soil, but within my own skin. Yesterday should have been a day of celebration. My new bespoke wheelchair—a bright orange Quickie Nitrum—had just arrived, coinciding with the first anniversary of my discharge from a neurological rehabilitation centre. But as so often happens now, my body responded to the surge of emotion in a cruel and unpredictable way. By the afternoon, the toll had arrived. Excruciating pain gripped me. My speech was gone entirely. Tremors and muscle spasms rocked my body without mercy. Despite the considerable amount of pain medication I take, the pain always finds a way through. By 01:30, the spasms had become so violent they resembled a seizure. In moments like that, medication is useless. You have to retreat into your mind,...