On a Scale of 1-10…

When you go to the doctor because you are in pain, they ask you how you would rank your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain imaginable. It has recently occurred to me that it is a totally subjective scale. I realized this because my definition of a 10 has really changed over the years.

My senior year of high school I dislocated my kneecap. Not realizing that I could injure myself so severely simply playing “Do You Love Your Neighbor,” it took about three weeks and my knee swelling to the size of a small cantaloupe before I went to the doctor. At that time in my life, that pain would’ve been a 10. I would not have been able to imagine anything worse.

Two years later, I sprained my shoulder and back. At that time, the pain I had in my knee might have gone down to a 7 or 8 because there were times when I hurt so bad I did not want to breathe. The expansion of my lungs made the muscles in my back move. And that movement was not something that my body wanted to deal with. That was the worst pain I could imagine.

The pain in my back and shoulders pretty much went away for about four years before slowly starting to come back. I have again had times when I hurt so bad all I could do was quietly cry and try not to move. Those moments are my 10s now. But I have some degree of pain almost constantly in my life. And because it is such a constant, even though it might have been a level 7 or 8 before, it’s dropped down to probably a 3 or 4 any more. And that’s pretty much the level I live my life now.

And from what I’ve heard, giving birth some day might shift my personal 1-10 scale again. So it is a completely subjective scale. It is hard to understand just what a number on such a scale could tell a doctor, except maybe the level of nuisance the pain is at that time. Except that does not mean I like the fact that I live at this level of pain just because I would put it at a 3 or a 4 most days. So really, what’s the point of the scale?