This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 26, 2009 - To appreciate any day in the life of author Lynne Greenberg, begin with this passage from “The Body Broken,’’ her striking new memoir of pain:
I am in pain from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. On a scale of 1 to 5, my pain never falls below a 3 and will rise at some point to a 5 nearly daily and stay there for hours. These spikes are unrelenting, stare-at-the-ceiling, wait-it-out pain. Its sinews unfurling, the pain whips through the middle of my head. It feels like an ice-cream headache – the sharp deep freeze of eating or drinking too much of a cold substance too quickly. It is heavier than an ice-cream headache, though; it feels as if an enormous weight lies along the tendon, crushing this central route, tearing my head in half …
For Greenberg, a St. Louis native who is in town for a Friday book signing, Thursday afternoon was a 4 on that 5-point scale. Chronic pain has been a part of her life for two years now – an old injury reborn in an intense and unrelenting headache that attacked out of the blue as she was doing research in a London archive.
Twenty-two years after her neck was broken in a horrific car accident, Greenberg’s doctors discovered that the fracture had never really healed. A critical injury that she had battled and overcome at age 19 had returned with a vengeance at age 41 – and, as she would eventually find, there is no cure for her.
Greenberg, who is 43 and a professor of poetry and classic literature at Hunter College in New York, chronicles her ordeal in “A Body Broken” with sincerity, honesty – and a meaningful selection of poems, ranging from Emily Dickinson, and Sylvia Plath to John Milton. With the support of her husband, two children, family and friends, Greenberg was able to find her path. Hers was “Paradise Lost,” now reinvented.
Even on this pain-scale-of-4 day -- after an uncomfortable flight from New York -- Greenberg was graciously cheerful, agreeing to a brief interview that she punctuated with pleasant laughter and gentle teasing aimed at her mother, Jan Greenberg, who was doting on her daughter the author.
“My mother wants you to know that I have a reading tomorrow at Left Bank Books at 7 o’clock," Greenberg said with a giggle.
They Feel Her Pain
With the publication of her book this week, Greenberg’s battle with chronic pain has gone public.
“Are you in pain right now?’’ Diane Sawyer asked during an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
To see Greenberg’s interview with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” and read an excerpt from the book:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/PainManagement/story?id=7152500&page=1
The book has been reviewed in national publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, and various Internet blogs, and it has resonated with people suffering from chronic pain.
“I think I’ve gotten about 100 e-mails and messages from people in chronic pain, and the book has only been out three days,” Greenberg said. “Some are asking for help, or suggesting things I might not have tried. Or, that we should have a neck break support group because there is no group like us.”
In the book’s author’s note, Greenberg cites a surprising statistic: One in every five adult Americans lives with chronic pain, which is defined as pain that lasts for several months. Chronic pain can be a product of terminal illnesses, such as cancer, but also headaches, back problems, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.
“I think people get very hopeless. What I have found startling has been the statistics; 74 percent of patients have depression, and the suicide rate in chronic pain patients is 20 times higher than any other class of patients, even those who have a disease that is terminal,” she said. “My hope in writing the book is that it touches people who are still in the midst of the hard part of trying to rebuild their lives and that it somehow can speak to them about a way out of the mess.”
'i’m Not Alone'
For Greenberg, reclaiming her life began with resuming it. She has learned to deal with her pain – to accept it -- but not at the expense of the joys.
“I think whatever your passion is as a human being, you can find solace in it if you are in chronic pain,” she said. “My passions were not singular, but poetry was certainly one of them. My other passions are my family and friends. My husband and children. And ballet and doing creative work, whether it be making a necklace or writing. Those have tended to be throughout my life, my passions. Turning back into my life again has been the best form of medication.’’
Greenberg, who is teaching once more, said she wrote the book quickly – in just seven weeks – and didn’t expect it to be published.
“I was writing it to be cathartic,’’ she said. “I was trying to understand what had happened to me, and I did the only thing I ever do -- to turn to literature and writing to understand things.’’
The response to the book is evidence of the number of people who are suffering – and that her story is not unique, Greenberg said.
“I’m a little tentative about putting my story out there publicly,’’ she said. “I’m not a public person, and I was very private about my pain. But it’s been very helpful to me to know that I’m not alone, and that’s why I wrote the book. The book is also written for the families who are going through this. My husband pointed this out to me. He said, ‘It’s really the families, also. We’re in as much pain as you’re in -- all the time, watching you.”
