Pain: Stories about unpleasant physical sensations

Pain is really weird, scientifically speaking. It’s not just a message from injured tissues to be accepted at face value, but a complex experience that can be influenced by your brain. In this week’s episode, both our storytellers explore the aches, pains, and discomfort that come with life.

Part 1: While Renee Joshua-Porter is in labor, she starts feeling a horrible stabbing pain in her back.

Renee Joshua-Porter is a multi faceted performing artist, Counselor and Chaplain. She is the Founder of The Burning Bush Family Foundation Inc., whose mission is to provide educational and recreational programs through the arts. A first generation American born to Panamanian parents, she grew up listening to and sharing stories. Renee is grateful for meeting Tracey Segarra who first showcased her storytelling on New York stages. Renee is married with three adult children and a dog named Beau.

Part 2: Despite being in excruciating pain, Gretchen Douma worries getting a knee replacement will ruin her blossoming acting career.

Gretchen Douma is a stage, screen, and voice actor who has been working in theater for more years than she’ll usually admit to. She has performed in Seattle, the Twin Cities, NYC, England, and, on Zoom (thank you, COVID). Also a playwright, Gretchen has several short works and two full-length plays under her belt. The most recent, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, is a dark comedy about the ghosts and memories that just won’t leave us alone. Her most terrifying out-of-body experience was doing stand-up at Seattle's Comedy Underground. For years a huge fan of storytelling, Gretchen has only recently jumped into this world as a storyteller herself. It has been thrilling so far. She loves dark chocolate, murder mysteries, and escaping to her backyard garden in North Seattle (where she lives with her wife, Nina, and their two miniature Australian Labradoodles).

Episode Transcript

Part 1

It's August 1991. I'm 25. Do the math.

I'm nine months pregnant. I'm five days past my due date. I'm married. I live in Brooklyn. It's 90 degrees. It feels like 106.

I'm angry. I'm really angry. And I force Keith to take me for a walk.

I pride myself on being pretty well read. I know more than the average Joe. I don't think I'm a knowitall, but most people do.

I beg him to take me for a walk. We're walking until I go into labor. We're not going back into that apartment.

So we walk and we walk and we walk.

I'll tell you a little bit more about me. I'm very well read when it came to health. I knew about the episiotomy. I knew no one was going to snip the Down Under. I knew about the epidural. There would be no injections in my spine. I knew about Lamaze, because I took it. I couldn't convince Keith for me to give birth inside of the bathtub, but I'm informed. I'm informed.

We walk, we walk, we walk. 40 minutes in, a little bit afterwards my water breaks. We're excited. I am in labor. I'm in labor, but the water is brown.

Meconium. I had read about meconium. When the baby passes his bowels in utero, it can go into fetal distress.

“Keith, get me to the hospital. Get me to the hospital now.”

Renee Joshua-Porter performs her story at Caveat in New York, NY in October 2018. Photo by Zhen Qin.

He flies me downtown to Brooklyn Hospital. They grab me. They strap me flat down onto the bed. They hook up the fetal monitors and, at that point, they tell me, “Don't move.”

“I'm sorry. Can you repeat that, please?”

“Don't move.”

“How is that supposed to work? I don't quite get it. I'm in labor. There's a lot of pain and you're telling me not to move.”

“You can't move, Mrs. Porter, because if you move you can put the baby into fetal distress. You have to stay still.”

So I'm strapped to the bed, hooked up to the fetal monitor and I start to get hysterical. The pain is increasing. The pain is increasing.

But something strange happens. I start feeling these Ginsu knives in my back and I start to get hysterical.

“My spine is separating. Excuse me. My spine is separating. Uh, hello? Hello?”

“I'm sorry you have to stay still. Renee, just relax. This is Keith. Just relax. Stop. You’re being selfish. Stop moving.”

“Stop moving?”

“Yes, stop moving. You're being selfish. Think about the baby.”

“What do you mean think about the baby? Get out of my face. Just get out of my face, all right. Why don't you just move? Get out of my face.”

At that point, my mother is there. And I start going ballistic because I'm having labor pains. Along with the labor pains, I'm having the knife stabbing in my back. Nobody's helping me. I'm strapped to the bed. Keith’s telling me not to move. And, now, I just start cursing.

You know what? Let's just start cursing everybody out. Let's curse everybody out. F you. F you. You can kiss. You can kiss, is on.

And now, at this point, I'm really mad because Keith, he's telling me I'm being selfish and my mother is telling me to pray. I don't want to pray. I don't want to pray!

So we're going back and forth. And at this point, Keith and my mother are at the door and they decide nobody wants to talk to me.

And I'm watching them, “No, you go in.”

“No, you go in.”

“No, you talk to her.”

“I'm not talking to her at all.”

“Well, I'm not talking to her either because I'm going to slap the shit out of her. That's why I'm not talking to her.”

And they're back and forth and I'm upset. Then finally, Keith lost the debate so he comes back over.

And my back is separating and the pain in my spine is getting more severe. It's a stabbing and it's a stabbing and it's a stabbing.

The nurses are doing their drive-bys. They come by. They look to see if I'm still. They look to hear and check on the baby's heartbeat and they're gone again. No one's explaining. All they're telling me, “Mrs. Porter, don't move.”

At this point I knew the thing about the Ginsu knives in the back it wasn't in the book. It wasn't in the manual. It wasn't in the chapter with the Lamaze. It wasn't with the episiotomy. It wasn't with the epidural. What is this? You know what it is? I'm going to die. That's what it is.

So I look at Keith and I'm crying now. I'm hysterical. “Keith, tell the baby about me, please. Tell her I was good. Tell her I'm kind. Tell her I'm a good person because I'm not gonna make it.

And he's looking at me and he's, “Okay, Renee,” and his eyes are glossy.

And he says, “Renee, but… but… but can you just stop. What are you talking about? Can you please stop talking? Your breath is kicking.”

“Is it really?”

“Yeah, it's really bad.”

“I'm sorry. Maybe because my throat is dry? Can I get some water?”

“No, you can't have anything by mouth.”

“I hate you so much. God, I just wish you'd die.”

And I'm cursing and he leaves. At this point, I feel totally abandoned.

So I'm like it's in now. I'm out. I'm cursing again. I'm cursing the nurses.

“Somebody help me. Please, somebody help me. My back is separating.”

At this point, I had labeled it. I had labeled it spinal detachment, because that's what I do. I make things up. It's spinal detachment. I'm experiencing spinal detachment.

And I'm cursing and I said, “I know I'm gonna die and I'll never get to see my baby. I'm being punished for all the bad things I've just done in my life.”

A collage of Renee Joshua-Porter and her daughter. Courtesy of Renee Joshua-Porter.

And I'm carrying on and I'm carrying on and this woman walks into the room, a middleaged black woman. Kind of thick. She walks in.

And she says to me in a thick Jamaican accent, “Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Porter, you know why they call it labor? Because IT'S WORK! NOW SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR MOUTH! You can't sit in here and cuss everybody out like this. It's labor. Behave yourself. Just behave your damn self.”

At that point, I just, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” I'm the five-year-old caught with the cookie. “I'm sorry I hurt so bad.”

“Where it hurt?”

“It hurts down here. My back, it hurts.”

“Show me where it hurt.”

“Right here, right here, right here.”

“Come over here. Come on. Let me rub it for you. Come on, come on.”

And she says, “All right. It's all right. You're gonna be okay, okay? All right. It happens sometimes. Some women get back labor.”

“Back labor?”

“Back labor, yes. Sometimes the way the baby is situated and the baby push against your back you get back labor. It's the head of the baby push on the spine.”

“Yeah, yeah, no. I'm going to die.”

And she said, “You cannot behave like this. You cannot be cussing people out and carrying on like a mad woman. All right? Tearing up the place. Come on now. Enough is enough.”

“I'm sorry.”

I later learned that back labor is actually when the baby is face up and is pushed against the spine and the worst position to be in is flat on your back. It actually prolongs the labor and intensifies the whole process. Nobody told me that, except for the nurse.

So, nine hours later after the episiotomy, after the epidural and the drugs, I had a eightpound, sixounce girl, 23 inches long. Healthy, but I was traumatized.

I waited like six years and had another baby. Not on purpose. It just happened, you know.

That one, no back labor. I just labored from one day to the next, but no back labor.

Five years later, I had another baby. I know. I'm a glutton for punishment. This time, though, I decided that the first baby, who was now 11, would be in the room with me when I had the third one.

That was a very Zen environment. I had music playing. I had a coach to help me pray. I was into praying by then. It was very Zen and everyone was trying to tell me, “Renee, don't you think this is too traumatic for her? She's 11. Don't you think you should leave her there?”

“Leave her right there. She's not moving. Look. Look.”

I thought it was very important that she learned first of all how to create her own environment to give birth, how to become her own advocate. And it was a perfect way to ward off teen pregnancy.

Thank you.

Part 2

When I was in college and didn't have anything to do on a Friday night, I would head down to our dorm’s TV room with all the other sci-fi Geeks to watch the latest episode of The Six Million Dollar Man.

Now, this show's premise was that its hero, Steve Austin, was a NASA test pilot who had been in a horrific accident. All the best scientific and medical minds had descended upon him to put him back together like Humpty Dumpty only with futuristic wiring and bionic parts. And, in the process, they gave him some superpowers.

A couple of seasons later, his fictional girlfriend got her own TV series, The Bionic Woman. Let's hear it for equal opportunity cybernetics.

Gretchen Douma shares her story at Greenwood Storefront Studio Space in Seattle in February 2022. Photo by Elizar Mercado.

This was 1974. And I loved sci-fi, but I didn't take any of it too seriously. I mean, sure, there were external prostheses for accident victims and amputees and organ transplants were becoming if not routine, at least achievable.

But a part robot, part man with superpowers in real life, not likely.

My attitude towards replaceable parts changed radically some years later when my knees started to give out. I discovered slowly, day by day, little by little that I was going to be walking with pain, deep, excruciating pain.

Getting in and out of a dining room chair was a major ordeal and using a public bathroom, forget about it. You never know how low toilet seats can get until you have to sit on one while your knees are giving out. And of course, nobody wants to hear crying and moaning coming from the stall next to them.

It got so bad that I started to walk with a cane. And going to the grocery store became this crazy juggling act between me, the cart and the cane, where the cane usually ended up between the wheels of the cart or I would lose my grip and it would fly down the aisle towards some unsuspecting fellow shopper.

It was also embarrassing. I was embarrassed to go out with my friends because I felt like I was the feeble, old grandmother that somebody unwillingly had to bring along.

And mostly, I was terrified. I was terrified that I was going to lose my ability to perform. This was never more true than when I was cast in a play in a leading role, which, by the way, never happens to character actors, of which I am one. We always get the secondary parts.

But it was a leading role in an excellent comedy and I was so elated. And I was so worried because I knew it was a highly physical show and it was being done in Tacoma, which is about an hour's drive from Seattle. That meant a rather long commute both pre and postshow.

But it was a leading role so, of course, I took the part. And I did the entire show on Vicodin. I managed to time my pain relief because I had to enter this particular show coming down a flight of stairs and sword fighting, no less.

The pain relief would hit just when I needed it but not enough to obliterate my memory of my lines or my blocking. Then I grab a big bag of ice and I'd plop it on my knee for the long drive home.

This whole episode was the thing that finally spurred me to consult an expert, a sports medicine doctor and an orthopedic surgeon who had become quite renowned for dealing with the knees of Seattle's pro athletes

He was a short fellow in his mid50s, a little bit balding, immaculately dressed in a suit, not a lab coat. And I think he was surprised and probably a little disappointed to see a middleaged actress sitting in his exam room.

He took a cursory look at my x-rays and explained that, “Oh, you have osteoarthritis. And you have no cartilage left on your knees. You are boneonbone. Did you know that that's some of the most excruciating pain there is?”

Hah, yeah. No kidding.

He also explained that I was a great candidate for total knee replacement surgery but I was a little young. He mansplained that this surgery would work but it was replaceable parts and they wear out too, just like your regular natural parts do, and you might want to wait a while.

“How long a while,” I said.

“20 years,” he said nonchalantly.

Hopelessness doesn't even begin to describe the tsunami of depression that was washing over me as I drove home, but I found my solution on late night television about a year later.

I was having insomnia, flipping through the channels and I happened on the grand rounds of the UW Medical Center. The doctor giving his presentation was an orthopedic surgeon whose specialty was knees and he was describing this brand new procedure minimally invasive, quadricepssparing knee surgery. The advantage to the patient was a shorter recovery time and a much shorter time in the hospital.

I was on the phone to his clinic the very next day.

And through a series of appointments, I became quite the expert on the anatomy. I found out that this surgery was great for the condition I was suffering from and, best yet, this surgeon didn't care where or when I had the surgery. His only advice was don't have both knees done at the same time. Do them one at a time.

My hospital stay was short, as promised. The surgery went well and I was sent home to do rehab. My best friend Larry came to stay with us that first week when I was home for the hospital so my wife could go back to work.

And the home health care nurse who showed up was delightful. A plump, short brunette with a sweet smile and a caring disposition, she would gently coach me through a series of harrowing balancing and stretching exercises, encouraging me as I gingerly hobbled around the house, “Oh, Gretchen, you're doing so well.”

Larry, a sixfootone former priest with an arched eyebrow and the sardonic delivery that only a drama queen can master had a decidedly more assertive approach. “Bitch, get out of bed and do your rehab,” he'd say every morning.

But Larry was the one who drove me to my post-surgical appointment and held my hand while the nursery removed 27 surgical staples from my incision. And he was the one who was cheering the loudest when I managed to make it down the hallway of the clinic canefree for the first time.

You know, actually mastering walking wasn't the hardest part of the whole thing. It was being able to flex my knee a full 90 degrees and completely straighten it out again. Maneuvers that were going to become essential if I ever wanted to, well, put on a pair of pants or drive a car again.

And there was pain. I don't know why I hadn't anticipated the pain. Did I think that popping in a new knee was going to be like changing the battery in a flashlight? Of course, the pain was different because this postsurgery pain would eventually go away, right?

I became an expert on the relative merits of gel packs versus crushed ice, and I looked forward to the biting cold when it would hit my knee after a particularly tough rehab session. But it was pain nonetheless.

I also developed a very intense fear of falling when I tried to walk without my cane. I was having this weird mindbody disconnect. I had this one knee that wasn't repaired and that was unstable and then I had this repaired knee but I didn't trust it either. I mean it was in me but it wasn't of me. It was mine but it wasn't mine somehow. I didn't know whether that would ever change.

That's when the doubt started to creep in. What had I done? Did I really think a replaceable part was the solution? And would I, could I have the stamina and the willpower to keep working through rehab, those long hours of pain ahead of me?

My new knees, yes, I had the second knee replacement about a year later, actually are nothing short of a miracle. The first time I went to a public restroom and sat down, no cane no pain, I almost laughed out loud, which would have been hard to explain to the adjoining stalls.

And what's miraculous is I never think about them, except when I'm at the airport. I'd have to go through one of those screening machines and then I alert the screeners to my bionic parts so they're not surprised.

My own personal superpower is I do things that are absolutely ordinary and would be absolutely unachievable without these new knees, like climbing a ladder to hang my Christmas lights or getting down on all fours, albeit with a knee pad, to dig in the garden, or balancing on one leg in a yoga class. Now, I admit that my tree pose is more Quaking Aspen than Mighty Oak but, as the yogis say, it is practice, not perfection.

And when I found out earlier this year that osteoarthritis had taken all the cartilage out of both of my shoulders, I looked forward with an eagerness, a willingness to have my first ever total shoulder replacement surgery, knowing that the surgery would restore my ability to move like a normal person and that my new apparatus would become simply another part of me, given enough persistence, patience, ice and time.

Thanks.