Have you ever listened to the hysterical sobs of your child demanding to know if they are going to hurt forever? Or perhaps seen the look of silent desperation in their eyes as they plead for someone to help them? I have. Too many times to count. 

It’s the cost of living with pediatric chronic pain, an otherwise invisible condition. 

Arizona took an important step forward in unmasking pediatric pain by officially proclaiming September 2025 as Pediatric Pain Awareness Month. The U.S. Pain Foundation’s theme this year is “Unmasking Pain: Because pain is more than a chart. It’s a life.” For me, that life is my daughter’s. 

This proclamation is more than words on a paper. To my family, and thousands of families like mine, this proclamation says: you are seen and your child’s pain is real. It is validation I didn’t know I needed. 

My daughter’s journey with chronic pain began when she was just seven years old. Between doctors’ appointments, therapy sessions, pain flares, social isolation, and silent judgement, chronic pain has stolen years of her childhood. But the greatest challenge of all has been feeling unseen, unheard, and unrecognized. 

I vividly remember the day we were told it was “just” chronic pain. It felt as if we were being dismissed, placated with words that sounded like a fake diagnosis. But this didn’t feel fake. It felt really…real. The nights of lost sleep, the hours of tears, the moments of big, brown eyes begging for help all felt real to me. That day forever changed my relationship with chronic pain. A feeling many other families know all too well. 

Pediatric chronic pain is a real health problem. Research estimates that 1 in 4 children live with chronic pain. That’s roughly 445,000 children in Arizona alone. Yet many of these children remain underserved and underrecognized.

Living with chronic pain has impacted every area of my daughter’s life. 

School days are missed. 

Friendships become strained. 

Sleep is restless. 

Her ability to focus at school varies. 

Her sense of self worth erodes. 

At school, the invisible mask of pain remains firmly in place. 

But at home, tears replace smiles.

Living with chronic pain can shape a lifetime. A child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development may be forever altered. 

There are other costs of living with pediatric chronic pain. Caregivers shoulder constant stress, sibling relationships strain, finances destabilize, and social isolation is pervasive. 

As a parent, I may not feel the physical pain, but I carry the weight with her. I too have had sleepless nights. I have lost important relationships. I have missed work and filed for intermittent Family and Medical Leave to care for her. I too have felt invisible. 

Unmasking pain means humanizing the lives of the people who fight to survive it every day. Pain is real. Pain is personal. Pain is more than a number in a chart, or a statistic in a report. Pain is my daughter’s life. Pain is my life. 

No child should lose years of their childhood desperately trying to be seen.  

My daughter’s life has been forever altered by her journey with chronic pain. While that journey may have been invisible to many, it has not been for us. 

This proclamation validates every step we have taken, and begins to bring us out from behind the mask.  An acknowledgement that awareness itself can lead to earlier diagnoses, more effective care, and better quality of life. 

Pain is invisible. A child is not. 

Pain is more than a chart. It’s a life. 

—by Kari McBride