He wore a super-strong carbon-fiber suit fitted with camera, radio mic and a crush-proof hose leading to a trailing oxygen mask all slathered in pig's blood when he faced the 20ft long, 18 ½ st green anaconda.
'She nailed me right in the face, and the last thing I remember was her mouth open wide, straight in my face, and everything went black. I went limp and let it constrict. All the while I was just thinking: “Eat, eat, eat!” ’
‘She wrapped around me and I felt my suit cracking and my arms ripping out of their sockets,’ he says. ‘It was absolutely terrifying.’
Overseen by doctors and vets, his armored suit cracked under the pressure. Enveloped in the snake’s coils, he couldn’t see anything but he was able to radio back to his team to say he was alive. They had agreed that once he was in past his waist, they would pull him out before it became too difficult to extract him without damaging either him or the snake. Read more:
Sometimes, pain makes me snappy. The same thing probably happens to you. I have the best of intentions to be nice, to repeat what I say without annoyance, but I raise my voice. My expression must reveal how I feel because my husband says, “All right. No need to be nasty.”
I'm the very one who should be understanding right now because of his illness, but my ears are very painful after a recent syringe at the surgery.
They ached right after treatment, but the nurse inspected the eardrum and said everything was okay. However, the pain got worse. Sharp pain, like a knife twisting inside my head. I saw the doctor two days later after my ears continued to weep. He gave me a week's dosage of antibiotics with a repeat visit ordered. The seepage stopped but the pain didn't. After the next visit, I got spray which needs to be used thrice daily. Pain, pain, pain. At night, it's almost unbearable. Hopefully, the condition will improve.
But that brings me to the question of controlling pain. Painkillers don't work for strong pain. I guess you've noticed that. I'm used to pain and have built a high tolerance in certain areas. My head seems to be outside this protection barrier though, requiring more strength on my part.
I first learned to control pain in the 80s. At about the same time, I began to meditate. I guess they go hand in hand. Wherever I was, I found that when pain kicked in, I could concentrate on a tiny point in my forehead and the feeling would fade. That trick came in useful over the next years as my hip condition worsened. I was born with malformed hips, but didn't know until late in life when I was diagnosed at the age of 40.
My marriage split up then and I moved from Australia to the other side of the world. In England, I learned to cope alone, got a job as a nanny within a week of arrival, and tended a 6 month baby.
By the time I met my present husband, my condition was worsening. One promise he made to me when we fell in love was that he would care for me for the rest of our lives together. This he has done, and now, 25 years later, he takes care of the cleaning, the shopping and the cooking. What a man.
Now, he's lost so much weight that it's hard for him to continue as before. We support each other, both in pain and both growing old. Yet, I bless our closeness.
Perhaps we need to balance good with bad in this life.
How do you handle pain?