I was walking after I broke my ankle in two places. It was weird - half the time walking produced no extra pain and half the time it produces a lot. That's when I figured I might have broken something, so I stopped walking on it until I could get x-rayed....

Dull pain, even quite a lot of it, can be borne longer and more stoically than a bright, sharp pain, or at least it works this way for me. I had endured quite a lot of abdominal pain with fibroids over several years because it built up slowly, notch by notch. And you tell yourself you stood it perfectly fine and got through it last time, stop being a baby, you don't have any sick time, get your warpaint on, get in the car and get to work.

Dislocated shoulder? Not a lot of actual pain after the impact, which was white-out bad, but a lot of fuzziness and being on the other side of a transparent curtain--both vision and sound were reduced, as was clear thinking, obviously. It wasn't till I raised my arm (why can't I do this simple thing?) assisting with the other hand and the arm bone snapped back into the socket that I greyed out again, and then there was super brightness and hereness and some soreness.

I figured all this out later on my own. Nobody paid any attention to me because a handicapped classmate had gotten a concussion in the same fall, and everyone was concentrating on her. I was concerned, too, and tend to dismiss my own symptoms, a lot. I know I'm a hypochondriac, always with the, "What was that?" so I don't pay attention till it's really bad.

Which, not the way to go, really.

Dislocated knee, with accompanying torn ligaments and other delightful additions? Just let me pass out right here, baby. No, I can't stand on that leg, no not at all, I'm not kidding. No, the knee won't lockfuckdon'tdothat! When you wish you could just go to your happy place and hide from it.

I don't do trauma pain well. Grinding chronic pain? Yeah, pretty much ignore it, or deal, or work around it.

Whole complete other post to wish Theo, Rayne, and Jesse Felicitations on the Anniversary of their Natal Days! I hope there's cake, with candles and wishes. And many happy returns of the day!

That's true, different types of pain do spark different reactions.

Stubbing my toe doesn't hurt all that bad, but it stops everything and I can feel it up to my hair. I had many other much worse pains that don't produce such a reaction. For me, too, a lot of it is related to whether or not I understand why I'm having pain. If I do, I can live with. If I don't, my fear of what it might be often makes it worse.

I was walking after I broke my ankle in two places. It was weird - half the time walking produced no extra pain and half the time it produces a lot.

Nothing broken, but apparently I have a bone out of place that elicits a similar reaction.

Thanks, y'all!

Happy birthday, Theodosia!! I thought of you this morning.

I had a good birthday including breakfast with family friends and running into a friend at the airport. Now I'm on the sofa with my cat, gorging myself on candy. I can't believe I have to go to work tomorrow.

My finger hurts. It hurts a great deal much of the time. When it is manipulated, it's some of the worst pain I've ever felt, and certainly the worst I've submitted myself to.

I sign up for pain, or the risk of pain very often. It's something I do like to avoid, but I don't like to fear pain. I will bear much of it without...without flinching. I complain because, well, because I'm tired. I get tired of not flinching or crying or breaking things or screaming. So I complain then. It lets a little steam off.

But the pain is there every day. So sometimes it's not complaining, so much as explaining. That I do a lot, and it makes me self-conscious. But, fuck, it hurts.

My mother had awful migraines on a very regular basis. They got so painful and so frequent that her meds were running out all the time and she kept having to ask her doctor for more. He totally dismissed her, decided that she was taking too much medication, and determined that the solution was to cut her off entirely.

This would be roughly two months before the Stage IV glioblastoma erupted and changed all our lives.

I have so much anger still at this fuckhead. Her tumours were so bad - her surgeons were aghast at how fast they grew back once they'd been surgically removed - that the end wouldn't have been changed. But what she suffered during those couple of months, and what we all lost by not knowing we were losing her when she was still "normal" mentally and physically - I'll never forgive that.

And I'm not saying he should have been psychic. But when a long term patient, a woman who was a scientist herself, who'd done extensive research on pain management, who knew more about brain chemistry than he did himself - when she reported a sudden, dramatic increase in the intensity and frequency of her pain, he was utterly dismissive.

[Umm, yeah. That's a rant that's been coming on for a while in this whole pain discussion - I almost posted and didn't about four times today. Longer - I'm starting to get an idea of why I reacted so strongly to that ass in the NY Times last week, I think.]

Oh, brenda. I'm glad you didn't hold back. That's a righteous anger there.

brenda, this is a rant-friendly place. So sorry about your mother.

So, I mostly skipped people's other posts on this topic, so forgive me if it seems like I'm dismissing anyone else, but... holy SHIT, brenda. That's horrifying.

My family and I spent a lot of time this weekend being grateful for our relative health, and man, it's the truth. (My grandmother isn't doing so hot, but she's 87, is still really pretty active, and has had a damn good ride.)