I think my task this week might be to gain a little more empathy with those who live with chronic pain.  I wouldn't be so bold as to term what I am experiencing pain - more stiffness, aches and discomfort (though it's a bit odd feeling your skull is stiff!) - but it is making me appreciate more what life might be like for those who live with chronic joint, bone or muscle pain.

Now, lest you worry I've gone all holy and Pollyanna on you, no I don't think this happened so I could learn empathy, just that given it did happen, by default I do.  At least, a little bit - in a few days my aches will pass and normality will resume, and I only have to experience this twice more in the next couple of months.  For some people it is day and daily - every day they ache, each morning they hurt, each night they wince... I can't imagine how people who experience chronic pain say so positive, yet most do.

I am fortunate, the aches I am experiencing are 'lower grade' than most of the injury pains I've sustained over many years of hiking, and I am not reduced to pill-popping simply to get by.  There are many people for whom this cannot be said, every movement brings pain and struggle.  So for a moment, I pause to enter the edges of their world, glad I can soon slip back to my own...