Tiffany Bruce spends every day, all day, thinking about pain. Her own, yes, but also the thousands of people she has met online who are, like her, recovering from spine surgery and often, like her, not their first. In the “Life After Back Surgery Support Group” on Facebook, they post questions, weary updates, and long, detailed accounts of their surgeries, sometimes good, sometimes very bad. Those with long-term pain reach for the language to describe it — “radiating,” “unbearable,” “like I’ve been kicked all night long,” “little bombs.” Sometimes they post X-rays or photos of their stitched-up back. Bruce’s profile picture is a cartoon drawing of a pink-haired girl in the fetal position, cracks blooming along her body.

To hear Bruce tell it, the past 20 years of her life have been kind o

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