The day after I wrote my poem about chronic pain, I went to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with my girlfriend to visit a young friend of ours from church. He is 8 years old and his name is O.

O is a boisterous kid. He always talks to my 2 year old son, telling everyone “there’s Baby James!” He plays with James, and is nice to all the other kids, too. His birth family is of Mixtec origins from Oaxaca, Mexico, and he was adopted by a family we know.

So you might be expecting a sad tale of woe and pain, given where we went to visit O. But when we were there, he was smiling and laughing, looking out from behind the nurse a little shyly until he recognized us.

O is in the hospital for a broken leg.
O has been in the hospital or visited the emergency room more than a few times.
O doesn’t have any idea why he is really there.

When I wrote my poem about my own chronic pain the day before visiting O, I didn’t really tie the two events together. But on the drive back from the hospital, I started talking with my girlfriend about O and I. You see, O is very special.

O feels no pain.
Zip.
Nada.
Nothing.
O suffers from a congenital condition that causes him to feel no pain.
O most likely doesn’t feel hungry the same way you or I might crave food.
O’s body doesn’t regulate his temperature.
O doesn’t currently have any fingernails because he tore his fingernails off.
O dives off his bicycle because it is fun, but his mom believes in quality of life.
O will throw himself down the stairs for attention.

As an ex-motorcycle racer, I can imagine being in my 20s again, sitting around the pits with my racing buddies at the end of a day of practice, and saying something like “Wouldn’t it be great if pain wasn’t an issue? We could crash, and it wouldn’t hurt!”.

Wait, did I just write that? What the fuck would we have been implying? In my poem I wrote the following about my pain:

“My pain is my reminder
Of my frailty,
Of my mortality,
Of my strength.
I carry it with me,
And it makes me human.”

I cannot imagine living outside of fear, with no constraints other than those I could codify in my mind. But if I was born without the ability to feel pain, I wouldn’t live long enough to ever get to an age where “codify” would even mean anything. You see, most people with this condition don’t live long enough to move past our youthful ignorance of our own mortality.

You will not know that the bright red electric burner on the stove is 900 degrees.
You will not know that making people gasp and react has left you with your palm devoid of skin.
You will not know that burns are a direct vector for infection because you are too young to know.
You will not feel the effects of the infection that is invading your blood.
You will get sick.
You will go to the hospital.
You will die from from sepsis.
You will have never felt pain.

O did not burn his hand.
O came down on his knees hard enough to break the growth plates off of his tibia and femur on one leg.
O likes jumping up and doing this because it makes the whole house shake.
O’s leg had most likely been broken for some time.
O does not feel any pain