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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2021
Pain can be a body-wrenching curse. Yet it is often a life-defining and supporting blessing!
Pain is a distinct physiological event, yet it is also an emotional, social, spiritual, and economic force. Pain in its more destructive form alters lives, changes relationships, and disrupts families.
Quality pain management should not be just a pharmacological response to a medical situation; it must also be a theological, ethical, and societal response to human need. Appropriate pain management is a gift to both the receiver and the provider. As a parish priest, a supervisor of pastoral services, and an ethics resource specialist, I have seen many pain-filled situations that have involved multiples of these dimensions.
Born in 1969, Casey died in 1995, just a few months after his twenty-sixth birthday. Casey was an intelligent, charismatic college student, strong in religious faith, who had few problems … at least until one day in the summer of 1994. That day he began to suffer extreme pain in his lower stomach and bowels.
