I read something recently that really moved me -- one man's account of what he calls "pain beyond words." It was in a New York Times blog, and it contained some profound statements to which I related at the deepest level, including this:

"I have no patience these days with the Nietzschean cliché, 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' I’ve found that the deepest pain holds no meaning. It is not purifying. It is not ennobling. It does not make you a better human being. It just is.

All the worst pain does is reduce us to our most primal animal. We want it to stop. We want to survive. It short-circuits any sense of self, diminishes us to a bundle of biological reflexes."

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I did used to believe in this philosophy, and in some cases I do think it's accurate. When it comes to severe, unrelenting pain, however, it can make us feel weak, lost and alone. Pain can take everything good away from you. I don't come out of those episodes stronger -- I come out of them shaken to the core.

"I've found that the deepest pain holds no meaning . . . . It just is." When I was going through unmedicated labor with my first child (pre-fibromyalgia), the pain was intense but held some meaning. When something is wrong in the body that needs to be fixed, pain holds some meaning. But if, like me, you've been in the emergency room afraid for your life, only to have long-awaited test results show "nothing is wrong," you truly know the meaninglessness of this kind of pain.

"All the worst pain does is reduce us to our most primal animal." This is a beautiful and accurate description of what I've been unable to express in the past -- the desperation we face, the loss of reason and rationality, the absolute, primal need for relief. Now.

The reporter who wrote this is Dana Jennings, a prostate cancer patient who's been through several surgeries. I hope he never has to deal with that kind of pain again, and on behalf of those who have to face that pain on a regular basis, I thank him for doing what he can to make other people understand.