Editor’s Note: We found Deborah Ann’s artwork, which appears on the cover, at the online Pain Exhibit. We are grateful to Ms. Ann for allowing LER to use the artwork.
By Deborah Ann
In 1997, at age 50, I started experiencing strange pains in my feet. It varied from lumps in my shoes to a hot poker stabbing my feet. Sometimes it was so intense that I could hardly stand up. I went from doctor to doctor getting treated for one guess to another. After 5 years, a new doctor said it was peripheral neuropathy and put me on gabapentin. It did nothing.
Then I tried all the usual medications, but nothing helped, and the pain got worse. I have a high tolerance to pain but they would prescribe the lowest dose of each new medication and nothing touched the pain. And because of the fear of over prescribing medications, they wouldn’t increase the dosage to a level that helped. This was very frustrating because I thought doctors would find an answer to my problem but didn’t. I got so I didn’t even talk about it. My feet were numb but the slightest touch turned into horrible pain.
The neuropathy continued along this way until it ramped up around 2005. That’s when my right foot didn’t bother me, but my left foot had this searing, hot sharp pain around the metatarsal between the smaller toes. This pain intensified only in this one location. It was debilitating at its worst and annoying the rest of the time. It would strike day and night and always start as moderate pain, then ramp up to screaming pain before settling back down. It affected everything in my life. I work as an artist and have a lot of meetings to discuss projects. Having an attack during a meeting was unbearable as my whole body reacted with twitches and stiffening up.
Since I couldn’t explain my pain in a way that others would understand, I made this sculpture called Pain Without Words. None of my galleries would display it when I had a show because it wasn’t pleasant. Then I found the Pain Exhibition (painexhibit.org) and it was accepted there. Since that time, it has taken on a life of its own. I give permission to use the image to advance the understanding of neuropathic pain.
I have wonderful doctors now who are trying to help me. Initially, my new primary care doctor asked me if white noise would help me get to sleep. Then he saw me react to pain and did more research and has combined medications that help some.
About 6 years ago the neuropathy advanced, still with the extreme pain, into ulcers that ate holes in my left foot. My very competent podiatrist recognized what was happening and tried everything to treat them without surgery. Finally, I started having small amputations of tissue to entire toes. When I was almost out of toes and the connecting metatarsals, he recommended a below-the-knee amputation. It will be 4 years this summer since this happened. I thought I would be in less pain, but that didn’t happen either. The searing pain episodes I experienced in my foot are still there – my brain refuses to relinquish that memory. Now I have the same terrible pain in my non-existing foot. Phantom pain is real.
Sometimes I despair, wondering if I will ever be out of pain. My art keeps me going. My friends are understanding.
Deborah Ann is a fiber and mixed media artist in Yakima, Washington. Find her other (non-pain) artworks at www.deborahann.net.
