“Two” on the scale of pain – stick with a band-aid and forget. What is “ten” to you? Wait and see how it ends? An interesting incident happened to Janet Bertholus and her husband, who, on the eve of a trip to the mountains, looked to the doctor …
Pain scale from one to ten
This list should be kept around at all times, because most of us will never tell you how much pain they are in.
Take, for example, my husband. One evening, thanks to the Internet, he discovered that he had appendicitis.
I smirked and didn’t take it seriously. But he was going to ride a motorcycle through the mountains of the Sierra Nevada the next day, and therefore, secretly from me, he nevertheless went to the doctor.
Pain scale:
0. Nothing worries me right now.
1. I don’t understand if it hurts somewhere or maybe just itches.
2. Maybe put a band-aid on it and forget it?
3. I do not like it. I would like to stop this.
4. Pain does not wander somewhere nearby, it is exactly here.
5. Why is this happening to me?
6. Someone stop this!
7. I see angels and I’m scared.
8. There can’t be so much pain! I must be dying. Help.
9. I’m definitely dying.
10 I’m being torn apart by a bear.
My husband’s behavior should have made me wary, because for almost any disease he has a phrase prepared: “No, you don’t need to call a doctor. I’ll wait and see what happens.”
He called me from the laboratory, where the doctor immediately sent him to do tests. My God, I thought. “These men are just like children.”
While we were talking, they brought him the results of the tests and told him to immediately go downstairs, where he would be prepared for the operation.
And I, apparently, can now throw away my medical diploma.
I drove like crazy, in the rain, in the gusts of California wind (in the film version of this story, I am played by Kate Winslet and it’s all very, very dramatic) – to have time to see him before the operation.
When I burst in there, he, all covered with droppers, was solving Sudoku and entertaining the nurses with jokes.
I wondered if I had ever experienced a ten on the emotional pain scale.
I rushed to hug him just at the moment when the friendly nurse asked him questions on duty before the operation.
What is your pain level on a scale of one to ten?
“Three or four,” he said without even flinching.
I thought maybe three because we had a burrito yesterday and the sauce was too hot. It’s not appendicitis, though.
– Are you sure? What then is “ten” for you? the nurse asked, because an appendicitis attack is at the top of the medical pain scale for most mortals.
– “Ten”? When they will scalp me or throw me into a boiling cauldron,” he answered quite seriously.
“Yes, yes, Braveheart. Has this ever happened to you? Do you have something to compare?
Will we tolerate “three” and “four”? What is ten for us?
I wondered if I had ever experienced “ten”?
Think about it.
Are we aware of our pain scale? How much can we endure? Of course, taking into account those for whom “ten” is to cut your finger with the edge of the paper.
A minute later, his appendix burst. I understood it from the expression on his face. For another second he remained on his “troika”, and the next moment it was already very similar to “ten”. It’s good that at that moment he was in a hospital bed, and not in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
– It’s ten, ten! Maybe even eleven! he yelled as the nurse had already injected him with morphine.
Then he was taken to the operating room.
I think this scale applies to emotional pain too.
Will we endure “three” and “four” to wait and see? What is a “ten” for us on the scale of emotional pain? The equivalent of boiling oil in a cauldron or a wound?
There is something to think about.