https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnZqB5Z75zI
Updated Jan 08, 2024 5:03:16pm
Meet the super humans
Imagine being able to remember everything or feeling no pain. Four people with extraordinary abilities reveal how their superpower has shaped their lives
‘I’ve never felt physical pain’: Jo Cameron, 72, Whitebridge, Scotland
‘It was only when I was 65 that the fact I can’t feel pain came to light’: Jo Cameron.
‘It was only when I was 65 that the fact I can’t feel pain came to light’: Jo Cameron. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian
I can understand why it took so long for anyone to notice. It makes sense that the quiet, happy person in the corner gets ignored. It was only when I was in hospital for an operation on my arthritic hand – aged 65 – that the fact I can’t feel pain finally came to light.
I’d only recently had a long-overdue hip replacement. “This will hurt more than the last one, you’ll need more painkillers,” the hospital anaesthetist had told me. I offered to bet any money it wouldn’t when I looked up at him with a smile.
He came to see me after the procedure and I wiggled my hand in his face, proudly. “No painkillers,” I said, grinning, “and no pain either.”
Down in London, I went for tests at University College Hospital. In the experiments, my husband was used as the standard – they even took a biopsy from his leg. The researchers found an abundance of a substance called anandamide in my body – so much that I never experience anxiety, fear or pain. Instead, my genes make me happy and forgetful – finally, an explanation for why it feels like every other week I lose the keys to my car.
Before then I’d just assumed I was clumsy, although when I thought about it properly, lots of things began to make sense in retrospect. This explained why I often get undressed and see bruises that I’ve no recollection of acquiring; why during childbirth, after some serious pushing I felt nothing more than a considerable stretch. It’s why the only way I know if I’ve burned myself while cooking is when the aroma of meat reaches my nostrils. I’m a vegan, so what I’m smelling is actually my own scorched flesh.