Each week, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, “approximately 23 percent of U.S. adults — or 52 million consumers — use an acetaminophen-containing medicine.”

That’s a lot of Tylenol. That’s a lot of pain.

I came home from Loyola Hospital last week after spending 34 days there. The doctors admitted me because I had been experiencing extreme pain. When the hospital staff ask you how bad your pain is, they expect you to respond with a number — 0 means no pain and 10 means it is unbearable. I was responding with sevens and eights.

They medicated me with opioids like Norco every six hours, which helped a lot right after I swallowed the pill, but after four hours the effect of the drug started to wear off and for two hours I would grit my teeth and curse the clock for moving so slowly.

They did MRIs, ST scans, and blood-draws to try to figure out what was causing my pain. What they found was a fracture in my left femur. In surgery they reinforced the bone with a metal rod. Physical therapy started after the repair job, but the pain continued.

It was a pain trifecta: pain from the surgery, pain from a sciatica issue which I’d been struggling with for two years and pain from my neurological disorder for 28 years. In addition, there were lots of needles: a blood-draw every morning, heparin shots to prevent blood clots and IVs.

I say all this not to get sympathy, but in the hope that many of you will see yourself in my story, and others will see what’s coming down the road and get prepared. I guess it’s human nature to ask why. Why me? What caused the fracture? Why is recovery going so slowly?

The ortho docs told me they could tell that the fracture was not caused by a fall, so my pain wasn’t my “fault.”

Literalists blame Eve for eating the apple.

Donald Trump blames immigrants.

Some folks argue that pain is somehow good.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude.”

I guess I don’t buy any of the above. Pain is always the enemy. Pain is never good in itself.

But especially when we are not responsible for a particular pain, we are always response-able, i.e. we have choices regarding how to respond. Victor Frankl contended that it’s not what happens to us that gives meaning to life but how we respond to what happens to us. 

We can respond to people who oppose us politically by making them pay. That’s one possible response.

“What’s wrong with revenge?” asked Archie Bunker. “It’s a perfect way to get even.”

In contrast, Michelle Obama once said, “When they go low, we go high.”

That’s response-ability.”

Pain, like manure, happens.

At some point we have to let go of obsessing over “why me” and who is to blame. 

Dealing with the pain I’m experiencing is hard work. It takes me half an hour just to put on shorts and a T-shirt.

It might not be fair but, as they say, it is what it is.

Read the Book of Job sometime. Job was afflicted with many losses and was tormented by a painful illness. In chapter after chapter, Job rails at God saying, in effect, “Come down here, God, and fight like a man, and I’ll show you and the whole world that you are not fair.”

If you are not religious, substitute the word “life” for God.

And God does come down, and in a long speech says, basically, “Job, you don’t understand because I am God and you are not.” For nonbelievers the paraphrase goes, “Life is so big and so complex that we mortals will never be able to get our heads around it all.” 

What we can do is learn how to suffer. A friend of mine and I were reminiscing about our football-playing days in which pain was part of the game. Maybe it was the thrill of competition that overrode the discomfort.

Sixty years later I was in an emergency room and the ER doc said, “I want to insert a needle in your elbow.” He paused and added, “By the way, it hurts like hell.” 

It did, and I was.

On the one hand there are things in life we will never understand, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. On the other hand, we are not God and, and will be in deep trouble if we leave humility behind and believe we have or soon will have all the answers.

Editor’s note: It’s good to have you back, Tom.