Redefining the pain scale, 1-10

Music: Metallica, Bleeding Me

ACL: A compensatory list

 

One of the questions you get asked literally every doctors appointment and physical therapy session is “How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1-10?” Now as someone trained in social research, I could tell  you that scales undefined do not carry a lot of meaning if the person responding does not know what they are comparing.

And I worry about things like this.

 

For the greater good of the medical profession, I have defined my own pain scale of 1-10.

 

 

1. Bunnies

As we are starting with the low end of the scale, a ‘1’ will signify adorable, cuddly bunnies. 1, clearly, is not so bad

2. Asparagus, eaten, cooked, or smelled.

Looks, tastes, and feels like something found at the bottom of a lake. Not food, no matter what I’ve been told

3. Rihanna

Clearly cannot sing, voice resembles animals dying painfully.

4. Racking your funny bone

Bash elbow into door frame, make face like so. Don’t let friends see you cry

5. Chewing tinfoil.

Go on, think ‘chew’.
I feel unclean

6.  Watching 16 and pregnant

Included because the show is (presumably) awful, but also that it represents encouraging teenagers to get pregnant for TV fame. Thanks MTV, no way the next generation will have long lasting and permanent scaring from your afternoon programming.

7. Going hiking with your dog, he gets into a nest of yellow jackets, and before you can say ‘poor guy’ he comes barreling straight your way.

Spud no longer likes bees

8. Road rash

Ever fallen off a bike and thought, “Don’t worry, the nice soft concrete will catch me and break my fall?”

9. Beaten with a bag of hammers

Whereas the bunny (1) is cute and cuddly, hammers, not so much. I include this because in the first week I actually responded in this way to the pain question: I feel less like I got beaten with a bag of hammers than I did yesterday. Eugena was confused

10. Walking on by the ocean with a wet bathing suit and no boxers

I include this as my ’10’ because it is one of the worst things I have ever experienced in my life. I once took a long, long walk down the beach after a swim, might as well have been wearing a thong made of sandpaper and poison ivy. While getting smacked in the neither region by a midget holding a cactus.

 

If you ever have surgery I encourage you to invent your own scale, but if you don’t want to take the time, feel free to use mine.

 

I’m somewhere between Rihanna’s new single and being beaten with a bag of hammers. Not as far off as you would think.