Pain, Misery & Pleasure

My right knee has no more cartilage left in it; I am in desperate need of a knee replacement, but can’t get it until I lose more weight.  In the meantime, it’s done a number on my hip and back.  And I tend to get hamstring pain at night that keeps me from sleeping.  Last night, as I was trying to get comfortable in a position that wasn’t throbbing, I began thinking of the pain scale.  As in when doctors ask you to rank your pain on a scale of 1-10.  My daughter, The Bio Major, always starts with, “If childbirth is 10 and a broken femur is 9, then I’m at xyz.”

That’s all well and good, but I’ve never had a broken femur, so I can’t confirm any of this.  Hence, I have made my own pain scale, and hope you can identify with it.

Pain

1	A sweet little puppy accidentally bites you a bit	The pleasure of playing with the puppy outweighs the pain.
2	Tearing your fingernail too low.	When it first rips off, it's bad.  After that it's just low-grade misery for a few days.
3	Biting a canker sore in your mouth while eating	Oh the agony.
4	Foot/knee/hip/back pain from standing for hours, especially in heels	This is especially true if you’re over 50 and already have problems with those joints.
5	Breasting feeding when you have mastitis, yeast in the breast, and a clogged milk duct	I had mastitis three times with each kid, and yeast in the milk ducts.  If you don't realize it, milk ducts go all the way into the back, and having yeast in them is universally described as having a venomous snake attached to your nipple and the venom going all the way back.  Add a clogged duct.  Back in the day, they'd give codeine and it was barely tolerable.
6	Disc pain in you back	When you've torn a disc in your back and can't walk, or even roll over by yourself. A bed pan is necessary.
7	Migraine - full, neurological migraine that's gone on for hours or days	I confess, there have been times in the midst of migraine that I have asked God to let me die.  Of course, I know that God is good and has good plans for me, so he would never listen to my bad advice.  So I'm safe there.
8	Being gored by a bear	I've never experienced this, but it has to hurt.
9	Childbirth, without any pain meds.	If a man ever asks me, I'll say it's like passing a bowling ball through your bowels and having it land/settle on your most sensitive part.
10	Being stung by one of those horrible insects or sea creatures in Australia.	I read a bit about someone who was stung by a jellyfish and, even with all the pain meds they could give, he was still screaming in agony.  I have no interest in going to Australia.

Now, my dear friends, let me put forth that pain and misery are two different scales.  Pain is acute, sharp, and at its worst form requires morphine or something stronger.  (I’ve yet to know the joys of morphine, and am grateful.) Misery is less acute and more ongoing, but horrible nonetheless.  So I have an entirely different misery scale, as follows.

Misery

1	Really bad hang nail	Put a tight band aid on it and get on with life.
2	Ingrown toenail	Go barefoot and DON'T stub your toe.  This will go much higher if you have to have a doctor cut it back and the nerve block doesn't work.
3	Fingers slammed in the car door, and waiting for someone to open it	This used to be a rite of passage; I don't know why it doesn't really happen so much anymore.
4	Mammogram	Really uncomfortable in the process, but it's over fairly quickly.
5	Really bad diaper rash (or the adult equivalent)	Especially as a result of # 8 or #10.  A&D is your friend.
6	Dieting, or a bad sunburn	Self-explanatory.
7	Episiotomy stitching with insufficient bupivacaine	After my first delivery, with significant tearing, my good doctor gave me THREE injections of bupivacaine.  Didn't fully work.  I could feel every. single. stitch.
8	Colonoscopy prep	It's even worse, because it has to be self-induced.
9	Hamstring pain	Nothing really relieves it, and it takes forever to heal. It throbs.
10	Full-on flu with the whole GI tract involved.  Fever, diarrhea, vomiting, aches.  Curled up on the floor next to the toilet.  In winter.	I once had it so bad that after being on the toilet I had to shower.  When I got out of the shower, I was too weak to walk to the bed.  So I laid down on the towel, soaking wet, on the cold, hard, bathroom floor, and slowing pounded on it until my husband came to help.  His insightful response was, "Well this isn't good."

 And finally, we can’t let this all be a downer.  So I’ve also provided a pleasure scale.  See what you think.

Pleasure

1	Being treated with dignity and respect	This is the baseline for simply not being in pain.
2	Listening to your favorite music	Mine is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.  Sadly, it's the organ music they use for cliché scary movies.  But there is an orchestral version that is just heavenly.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC4TOtedNQA
3	Looking at beautiful scenery	Places like the Grand Tetons, Grand Canyon, a west coast beach that goes on forever at sunset with a breeze and the sound of the waves.  You get the idea.
4	Epsom salt bath, or chocolate	It's partly the bath, and partly how good you feel after the bath.
5	The head massage when my hair stylist washes my hair, or chocolate	I have to be careful not to make inappropriate moaning sounds.
6	Dairy Queen or cold lemonade on a hot summer day, or chocolate	It's the best America has to offer.
7	Seeing/hugging your beloved sister/friend/ parents/spouse after a long time	Because love just feels good.
8	Passionate kissing	Ooh la la!
9	Unnamed, but you know what it is	We're keeping this kid-friendly.
10	Your newborn baby	There was discussion on this.  It was originally at #8, because we’re talking short term vs long term pleasure. However, it occurred to me that if you have #10, then you’ve almost certainly had #8 and #9, so that #10 is all-encompassing.

I will freely confess that all of these orderings are negotiable depending on the day and my mood. I’m sure tomorrow I would come up with different lists.  And per Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow is another day. (Am I aging myself?)