When you feel great pain, you become conscious of the suffering of so many people, for whom chronic pain is a continuous reality of life. We sometimes tend to forget these people, as we forget the  struggles of others who are often out of our sight and awareness. In that sense, pain can be a gift. It can also test one’s faith.

I was in a lot of pain this morning, and while I am not a complete stranger to it, it had my full attention after my fall on my knee yesterday. I saw all kinds of stars last night. My first thought was to go to the emergency room, my second to an orthopedist. But then I listened to myself, and there was an inner voice for sure, and it said “you have worked hard to find and trust an alternative kind of health care, and why not use it, give it a chance?” I think pain is like fear in that way, in that it can wash choices and other kinds of alternatives away quickly.

I also have been working to trust myself, to listen to my body and feel it. The pain was substantial, but the leg bore weight and when it was still, it diminished. It didn’t feel broken to me. I didn’t intend to diagnose myself, but to take the time to consider how I felt. I called Dr. Roseanne Dennon’s office in Manchester, Vt. and talked to the practice receptionist, Janet Baierlein. Janet and I have have many conversations on the phone and in Dr. Dennon’s waiting room and she has been supportive and influential in my gathering the strength to define health in my own way and seek serious but alternative approaches to the conventional health care system, which does many things very well I gather – including dealing with orthopedic traumas. Still, the process has been long and frightening to me, and the support of people like Janet very important.

So this morning, a more urgent chapter in my health care than usual. I called Janet and told her about my knee. Come on in, she said. Dr. Dennon, who is easy to talk to, yet very focused and businesslike, had me lie down on the examining table and she moved, prodded, lifted, poked my knee and leg from about a 100 different vantage points. She adjusted my knee and my knee cap. She told me to get a bandage for my leg, to go home and lie down and rest my leg, elevate it, put ice on it. Go to New York, she said, do what you need to do, but take some time out to lie down, keep the leg up, put ice on. No medications.  The knee is better but I am not pushing it. No photos, no chores, no hopping up and down (mostly). I am doing what she says.

I do not mean to steer anybody away from their own choices of health care if they wish it or need it. I am not telling anybody else what to do, or arguing my own decision. But this was a good thing for me to have done. I have a health care system in place. They are very good. I listened to myself. I knew what to do. And as Dr. Dennon reminded me, I need to consider new ways to keep from falling on my hilly, icy, farm. I’ll do that too.

For me, this kind of health care is very important. They listen to me. I listen to them.  I trust them. They never do more than they need, and do not assign tests or procedures for other than health reasons. I mean to work to expand and retain this – for me – very new and different idea about what health and health care is, when I am tested as well as when I am not. Roseanne and Janet are warriors for health.