I’ve been lurking on several nurse and doctor blogs lately. Apparently, there’s a furor over the appropriate use of the pain scale. Some people have pain that rates two points over the limit, as improbable as it sounds, making the scale less a ruler and more like those “Caution: x speed recommended” signs.
When my son was in the hospital, they had a chart with five faces on it, ranging from happy to death-warmed-over. Seriously. It wasn’t a yellow happy face anymore, it was matte teal with x’s for eyes. (Don’t bother with editing my “x”, by the way. My form may be archaic, but the other way just looks weird.) (Okay, okay, so I’ve used them both. Sue me.)
Some people say that you should reserve “10″ for the absolute, worst pain you could ever imagine. I have a vivid imagination–never mind Saw, I’ve seen worse in my dreams. So that knocks any pain that I could experience in the course of normal life to a five. So, 1 to 5, how is my pain during labor?
I’ve had four kids, all without drugs, because I would rather deal with pain than be a zombie. Unless the pain makes me a zombie.
[mild RANT ALERT] Seriously, folks–for MOST of the female population, we can handle it. Some people can’t, but it’s not bone cancer. It’s a baby. Cowboy the fuck up and deal, so the next time someone mentions anything about the “weaker sex” you can shove his foot down his throat. At the very least, you’ll have bragging rights. And before you tell me about your “immposible, HORIBLE PIAN in my life! that YOU have obvoiusly NEVER FELT!!” let me say–for that small percentage of you that really needs meds during delivery, I feel for you. Honestly, I do. I’m so sorry that you had to take meds to get through, and I don’t think it makes you less of a mother or less of a woman. In fact, I’m in awe that you would do it more than once if it was that bad. Seriously. But for everyone else–obviously evolution (or God) has determined this is the way to go. Humans have survived childbirth for however-long, sans meds, until recently. In fact, it’s only been the last breath (comparatively speaking) of our time here that hospitals & meds have been available. So, if you want to compare giving birth to FUCKING CANCER, do it elsewhere. And cease rolling over the bed and screaming while the nurse is in the room, and texting your lame-ass boyfriend when she’s not. [/mRA]
With the last birth, someone (a CNA or student, I don’t know which, but her scrubs were the wrong color for RN or LPN) came in and asked me my pain level, 1 to 10. I said, “3.2 ranging to 4.” (I’m a science geek, remember?)
“Ooookaaay, and during a contraction?”
“Huh?”
“…You said your pain was 3.2, what is it during the contractions?”
“That is the contraction. 3.2 to 4 at the peak.”
“…”
“Right now it’s a zero. Does your scale go to zero?”
“Um…”
“If not, I’m okay with a 0.7 or something like that.”
“Hold on. You said-”
“Contraction, wait.” Two minutes pass. “Um, yeah. 3.2-4 during the contraction, zero or 0.7 in between.”
Yeah, I’m a weirdy. My husband was trying not to laugh–he said she looked so confused. We got a big kick looking at the read-out of my contractions…I guess they just don’t “register” with me or something.
The real kicker was the girl who brought me Motrin and a stool softener the day after. I was like, I’ve already gone twice, what do I need that for? It’s nothing I can’t handle. According to the staff, I’m the first one they’ve seen go through L&D without at least Motrin or Tylenol. Not that I’m proud or anything, I just handle pain pretty well. And the stool softener, well, I ordered salad and fruit from the cafeteria, so I didn’t have any struggles with that.
I dislocated my jaw when I was in the ninth grade. That’s a 5 on my pain scale. Right below, at 4.9 is the time I dislocated two toes and sprained a bunch of ligaments in my foot with an incorrect slide into home plate (safe, by the way). And directly below that, 4.8, are the multiple jams of my fingers during basketball. The initial jam doesn’t hurt so much as the flexion and extension afterward, ’cause it always seemed to happen to your right hand the day before (just an example) National ACT Day of your senior year. Suckers. You’d think coaches would realize that athletes have to take ACTs & SATs, too. But nooooo, we were always playing in Boondock, or some such place, getting home at 1 am, gotta be up by 5:30 to get to the testing center (decidedly UN-local community college) by 7:15. It’s a miracle I did well, considering.
So, I don’t understand “12/10″ pain. What is that? If it’s that bad, just say 10 and get it over with. There’s no need to go all prima donna and say that your pain is two points higher than any pain you can imagine…unless you’ve got a really poor imagination, or a bad memory. I mean, if it’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt, wouldn’t it be the worst you could imagine? And if it isn’t the worst you could imagine, then it would be an 8 or a 9, right?
Right?
