@nemo1 - So well put, so well expressed.

My only hope is that it can resonate for Frances, you, and those others of us in similar straits.

I am not in a disabling condition right now, but have been dealing with pain from a necessary outpatient procedure / surgery for a month now. What I have helping me is the idea that it will get better. No one exactly has told me this, but I will be asking for more specifics at my next doctor exam this coming Monday. The oncologist and her team have been compassionate, reachable, and helpful in their suggestions, though for whatever reason nothing has resolved the pain - let alone removed it - but the application of Vaseline at the time of the pain, just to keep it brief.

I am concerned, and wanting to know how I can better share Frances' pain - I'm hoping that, much as you wrote, to speak it is somehow to reduce its impact. Here we are 'speaking' it through writing, and the Mayo Clinic Compassionate forum has been so very very helpful.

I hope it helps enough here Frances, and for others (myself included) as we endure through our various struggles, to be able to communicate them in this empathetic forum and with the benefit of others who can share their pain and struggle and efforts to combat, lessen and even remove it, if only enough to reset and remain consoled in who we are and our own essential worth.