Earlier this year, after decades of living relatively pain free, I was smitten, Job-like, with a shoulder injury.

It’s unclear how this happened.

One day I was trekking through Ecuador with two of my adult kids, feeling smug and self-satisfied about being such a hip boomer, someone who, though just years from eligibility for Medicare, could swim in wild surf, hike through a forest of towering bamboo and stand for hours in a customs line with a heavy backpack resting on my shoulders. 

The next I was whimpering in a suburban CVS, a roller stick of lidocaine in one hand, a jar of CBD ointment in the other. 

My doctors think it was the backpack that did me in, but I’m pretty sure it was the smugness.

Regardless of the cause, I dwelled for months in a pain cave that smelled of menthol. The official diagnosis was adhesive capsulitis, more commonly known as frozen shoulder. In some parts of the world, the internet tells me, the condition is insultingly called “50-year shoulder.” 

From the base of my neck to my fingertips, every inch of my right arm throbbed with some sort of pain. Sometimes the pain was shooting and sharp, sometimes it was dull as old scissors. Sometimes it seemed to come from nerves; other times, from muscles. The pain woke me during the night. During the day, I couldn’t reach behind my head to put my hair in a pony tail. Then there was a numbness that was ever-present in my hand, making it difficult to write with a pen. Who knew that numbness, which is supposed to be the absence of feeling, could be so heavy and debilitating? 

I know we are to praise God in every circumstance, and even deep within the pain cave, I could see the good that came from the experience. For one thing, I developed a deep and abiding empathy for everyone who lives with chronic pain. I learned that nothing, apart from having teenagers, ages you quite so fast as pain. The pain also gave me something new to contemplate at 3 a.m.

I have always thought of my body as my friend, a partner that accompanies me on many adventures, for the most part without complaining. Once my body started complaining 24-7 — screaming, really — I began to wonder if my oldest daughter is right. She sees her body not as her friend, but as an enemy actively working against her. She approaches health care and self care as a vicious game of whack-a-mole. She takes no prisoners in this war, and I’m now open to the possibility that she might be right. It’s entirely possible that this body that pretends to be my friend is actually my adversary and is cackling over every ache and pain.

The good news for anyone else suffering from frozen shoulder is that it does subside eventually. There are various effective treatments, such as oral steroids and shots, and when I finally broke down and went to an orthopedic practice, I gratefully partook of everything my doctors offered, including physical therapy.

It took a while, but eventually I arrived at a place where, while not yet completely pain-free, I’m not whimpering pathetically all day. I’m mostly done with suffering from 50-year-old shoulder and back to tending my less malevolent 60-year-old knee.

A few years ago, a Jewish friend introduced me to the modeh ani, a prayer said upon awakening each morning. Basically, it’s saying “thank You, my Creator, for returning my soul to my body.”  I have no new wisdom to impart on whether our bodies are our adversary or our friend, but every day remain grateful to have one, regardless of its condition.

And I do have advice for fellow adventurers: If the smugness doesn’t get you, the backpack will. Pack lightly, or make your companions with 20-year-old shoulders carry your bags.

Art: “Interior of a Cave” by Antoine Benoist, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access