By Ingrid Hollis

How many pass, sight unseen
Only the family left to tell?
Yes, we know all too well
It was the pain.

Untreated, unheeded, so it goes
How engulfed in a fiery foe, left untended
It grew from head to toe.

Only the family left to tell,
How this kind of pain, left untreated,
They quickly go.

We cannot afford to go backwards in time,
Too many lost to pain unheeded
To "it’s all in your head” and “no one dies."
For die they do, a horrible fate.

When pain can be treated,
Make no mistake,
Pain knows no limits when untreated it goes.
Intractable suffering, it's horrible blows, becomes 24/7, and it never goes

How long can a heart beat, and a soul keep alive
When a body is stressed beyond limit?
And remember…
No one wants to die

Pain can be treated, make no mistake
Please discard this meme, this heartless theme
"Pain never killed anyone."
We've done it before.

We can't go backwards
We're better than that, we can do more.
Who decides our fate, it hangs in the balance
If intractable pain comes knocking on your door?

Will you be told to go away,
”Pain never killed anyone.”
Now please go away?

Ingrid Hollis is a person in pain and patient advocate. Ingrid recently retired from a leadership role in the Tennant Foundation’s Intractable Pain Syndrome Study and Education Project to care for her family.