![]() And for 30 years he has searched for relief. He became an advocate for chronic pain sufferers and started a support group. When the pain began to take over his life, Norris sought solace in speaking out. ![]() ![]() These fMRI scans demonstrate that study subjects exposed to thermal pain in a laboratory setting experienced significantly reduced pain-related brain activity when they used VR. When his agony is especially intense, his wife of 31 years, Marianne, says she can tell by a certain stillness she sees in his eyes. A tall and genial man, he’s become adept at wearing a mask of serenity to hide his pain. Norris, who lives in a Los Angeles suburb, spoke to me from a long, cushioned bench, which allowed him to go from sitting to lying flat on his back. Sometimes the pain is so overpowering, Norris says, that his breathing becomes labored. Even on the best days, it severely limits his ability to move about, preventing him from doing the simplest chores, like taking out the garbage. On bad days, the pain is so excruciating, he’s bedridden. It’s been his constant companion, like the cane he uses to walk. It cut short his career as an aircraft maintenance officer in the U.S. Since then, Norris, now 70, has never had a single day free from pain. But Norris was left with a piercing ache that burned from his hip up his spine to his neck. His cancer disappeared and hasn’t come back. ![]() More than three decades ago, when Tom Norris was fighting cancer, he underwent radiation therapy on his groin and his left hip. This story appears in the January 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. ![]()
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