Recently, my doctor asked me to describe the level of pain
that he understood me to be experiencing with a torn shoulder tendon. “On a scale of one to ten…” he
suggested. I could not rank my
experience in that manner. In fact, his
interpretation of pain was radically different from mine.
Pain is one of those words that is completely
inadequate in the English language.
A few years ago, I had a tooth that was not decaying, but
had some nerve damage and slowly was loosening.
On a daily basis, I experienced significant discomfort, but it was not a
classic toothache. It did not
“ache.” However, from time to time, in
addition to the discomfort, the nerve would be agitated, and a sharp sensation
would knife through my jaw. Still, to
me, it was not pain.
In 1986, I sliced sixteen tendons, the nerves, artery and
vein in my left arm. During the healing
process, my doctor prescribed high-power painkillers. I never used one, as I did not feel that I
was in severe pain. My arm throbbed
constantly, and, to this day, my hand feels like it is being pinched in a set
of vise-grips. However, my wife was experiencing intense headaches, and used up
the entire prescription, with only moderate effect.
In 1972, in the last years before my mother died of cancer,
the hospital attempted to have her accept her morphine to alleviate the pain of
the illness. She refused, stating that
she wanted to wait until the pain was sufficiently severe. She felt that using the medication too early would
make the painkiller less effective as the last stages of the disease ravaged
her. She died, never reaching the stage
where she would accept the morphine.
I have had numerous broken bones, none of which gave me
pain, yet all of which induced some inconvenience, with unusual stabs
reminiscent of being sliced with a utility knife.
Headaches are different from bruises, while the flu or a
severe cold is different again, from a basic headache.
A strained muscle is very unpleasant, but is the pain of the
strain equivalent to a deep cut? How
about the unpleasant experience of a paper cut?
Pain extends to the emotional, as well. A relationship breakup is different from the
death of a loved one, yet both bring great pain, and heartache.
Back to my doctor’s query.
On a scale of one to ten? Well,
the shoulder hurts, but my arm laceration was more severe. So, it cannot be a 10. The chronic nature of my tooth problem was
more aggravating than the arm laceration, so down the scale a notch goes the
shoulder. I have worked for weeks with
broken bones, not understanding that they were broken, but knowing that they
hurt considerably. Prolonged and fairly
intense, they relegate the toothache down the line. My mother’s experience with the rot of
cancer, no doubt, dwarfs the broken bones.
Again, move the shoulder further back in the line. I have seen the intense pain that the death
of my wife’s aunt caused. Obviously, the anguish of the sudden death eclipses
the slow evolution of my mother’s. Once
again, my shoulder takes a backward step.
So, on a scale of one
to ten? Probably a minus one. Not because the shoulder feels fine. It feels far from it. A minus one, because I cannot claim that the
shoulder discomfort is painful, and cannot rank it against other, more serious
pains.
We need more words to describe pain, because this torn
shoulder is causing me a good deal of inconvenience, and the inconvenience is a
pain in the butt. An 11 on a scale of 1
to 10.
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