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“Oh Yes! Yes! Yes!” Rhonda exclaimed through gritted teeth (all identities protected.) Face down she hugged the pillows and turned her head left towards me.
“Don’t move. Thank you! Thank you! That’s it! Stay right t h e r e.”
A muscled wave passed the length of her body. Pain? Pleasure? Both? A tattoo of a vines and roses disguised the surgical scars with staple tracks that stretched down the small of her back.
Just before my team brought her into the operating room Rhonda declared to the pre-op nurse, anesthetist, technician, and scrub nurse gathered around her gurney, “We enter and leave the world nude and dependent on others. Sometimes in between we need help and were back in the nude.” She smiled as she let that playful comment breath. "This is one of those times for me and I want you to know I’m grateful. Thank everyone for me!” She pulled the short hospital gown down a bit. "It’s my nude gratitude.”
After a decade of pain and almost a half a century of life, Rhonda still had heavy dark hair, a warm smile and plans to write stories for her grandchildren.
In the O.R. I used 3D guidance with a fluoroscope to place the wires into her spinal canal. It didn’t take a doctor to know that her “Oh Yes!” response meant I’d found a sweet spot.
I signaled my assistant to turn the stimulation down and asked Rhonda, “Is that covering your main pain?"
Everyone stopped to hear.
“Mm. Mmm. Yes.” said Rhonda as she sighed contentedly. “And so much more! Please turn it back up.”
Was that a vague feeling of jealousy I felt at her pleasure?The pulse monitor slowed it’s cadence as Rhonda’s breathing grew deeper.
“She is going to like this." I got that winning feeling that’s so energizing in the operating room. "Better days ahead for Rhonda. I love my work.” Gratitude is food for me and my team.
Further neuromodulation testing showed the “pacemaker for her spinal cord” got all her main pains. I secured the electrodes in her spinal canal at her low Thoracic cord. Joe Satriani’s “If I Could Fly,” played as we wrapped up and took her to recovery.
Although I felt pretty tall, I’ve done this enough to know that Rhonda’s gratitude fitness was as powerful an indicator of success as my skill. Over 15 years into this I still marvel that similar people with virtually identical damage to their spines can have opposite outcomes. One continues to be engaged in a meaningful community and life while the other collapses under the suffering associated with the pain. Why?
A factor that I use to prognosticate whether someone is going to do well is their capacity for gratitude.
A grateful personality is like a superhero’s power. Habits of expressing gratitude powers forcefield shields and repair systems.
Spinal Cord Stimulator Implant
The spinal cord stimulator is just one of many cool treatments I have that can raise a person up above pain but gratitude is like rocket fuel. Rhonda’s awareness of moments of joy framed her past into a shield against despair. Rhonda’s humorous expression of nude gratitude recruited allies to defend her against present despair. Rhonda’s hope banished dispair from her future and amplified her imagination of joy to come.
There is beauty and joy that remains accessible even in the dark night of pain.
Feelings and thoughts of gratitude often seem spontaneous and involuntary but they can be consciously trained. Some feelings can be forced via implants of electrodes on a nerve or spinal cord or brain, but the reverberations of those feelings can only follow old pathways. Gratitude can be squashed if pain is perceived as inescapable. A diversion and training can turn that perception away from the old tracks of despair to the circuits of gratitude. Since neurons that fire together, wire together, the threshold to feel gratitude decreases with practice.
Did you say “Thank you” today? Is it a tradition in your home to reflect on your favorite thing of the day and express your hope for tomorrow?
What medication can,
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decrease your pain,
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save your marriage,
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increase your energy,
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make you more popular?
Gratitude.
I would like that in a chewable, please. I would like Nike Fuel or Fitbit to add a "Gratitudometer" to my wrist band and a discount on my life insurance.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for your comments.
