After six days of lying immobile on the living room floor, watching Tyra Banks, getting sicker and sicker from a mysterious flu-like illness, I was dragged to the ER against my will. In triage, the nurse was kind as I explained my ailments. Looking down she gestured small slips of paper taped to the side of a filing cabinet.
"Can you tell me, using this scale, how much pain you are feeling right now?"
My eyes traced the children's scale first and I thought about the children too young to explain their pain in terms of numbers, pointing to the frowning, crying face in hopes someone could make their pain go away. Feeling sad for sick kids, I moved my eyes to the numbered, adult pain scale asking me to rank my hurt from 1-10.
Looking at the numbered scale, barely able to think through the pain I was terrified I had let progress beyond repair; I couldn’t help but think about Eula Bliss’ non-fiction piece “The Pain Scale". Thinking about “The Pain Scale” reminded me that I was missing class. At that point, the pain of obligation, or the pain of possible failure was greater than the dull cramp in my back or the searing slice through my head when I moved my eyes. I pictured the worlds of "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" and all the death, surprise tumors and incurable illnesses each show featured weekly. Last year the Washington Post reported that between 20 and 25 million Americans tune in each week to watch the sex and drama filled "House". If those 20 to 25 million Americans were also in the ER, waiting to hear the cause of their Tyra Banks filled days of pain, fevers and chills, would they also be thinking about the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital and Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital of TV fame?
I refocus on the scale. I can't think of what kind of pain would cause me to point to the 10. I can’t think about what a “high tolerance” means. Over the course of my illness the pain gradually grew and each day I had accessed the pain by comparing it to other pains: Getting my nose pierced. The tattoo on my hip. Food poisoning. Getting my heart broken. This doesn’t hurt that bad.
Because I was thinking about "The Pain Scale", Grey's Anatomy, my tattoo mile-markers, bad Chinese food and broken hearts, and not solely my current discomfort, I pointed to the 3.
