Pain Is a Gift

Just about everyone who reads the title of this post would disagree.  We spend a lot of time and money trying to kill pain.  Would being pain-free be nirvana?  Ashlyn Blocker would not think so.

Ashlyn was born with a bad SCN9A gene.  With some people a mutation of this gene leads to severe pain and chronic pain syndromes.  She was diagnosed with an extremely rare disease known as congenital insensitivity to pain.  As a result, Ashlyn cannot feel most pain.  Just think what would happen to your child (or you) if you couldn't recognize that your hand should be removed from the hot pan boiling on the stove.  Or, you could not feel the pain that comes when you break a bone.  Or, realize you're bleeding pints of blood.  A good number of people afflicted with this disease never make it out of childhood; you can understand why.

So, I agree with two doctors who are working with this disease:

"It’s quite interesting, because it makes you realize pain is there for a number of reasons, and one of them is to use your body correctly without damaging it and modulating what you do.”

“Her life story offers an amazing snapshot of how complicated a life can get without the guidance of pain. Pain is a gift, and she doesn’t have it.”