Improv, Week One

"The Pain Scale" ~Eula Biss

Relevant passage:

"Hospice nurses are trained to identify five types of pain: physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and financial.
The pain of feeling, the pain of caring, the pain of doubting, the pain of parting, the pain of paying" (30).

An itch is a kind of pain, according to Eula Biss' father. Being uncomfortable also, according to me. The pair keeps me awake at night. If there are indeed five types of pain--and I think there are at least five--then I propose that the emotional, spiritual, social, and financial types manifest themselves in the physical.

My first encounter with the Wong-Baker pain scale was a comedic one, likely because I wasn't in pain. Michael, my oldest son, also not in pain, attributed the pain-free face to my husband Jeff's face when he takes the family to McDonald's. The contorted "worst pain imaginable face," Michael asserted, represents Jeff's pain level when we eat at Applebee's. Proof, I suggest, that the pain scale is relative. After paying at Sea Captain's House in Myrtle Beach or the quaint Cajun cafe on the corner of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Applebee's might register a '5' or a '6.' Financial pain--the pain of paying. I didn't feel it personally.

Sometimes, though, I do feel other people's pain. Emotional pain--the pain of caring. When my mom was suffering from emotional abuse and refused to be helped or help herself, my chest hurt all the time. Every night, I rolled up a pillow to press against my heart, trying to hold my body together. To stop the constant sensation of exploding. Helplessness. The worst pain imaginable?

Sometimes, doctors say, we live with pain so long that it seems normal. This kind of pain, we don't acknowledge. Tyler, my best friend Patricia's oldest child, was diagnosed with severe allergies at the age of 13. He also needed sinus surgery. Patricia questioned the diagnosis, noting that Tyler never complained of feeling badly. His doctor said he had probably adjusted to the pain. He'd felt that way so long that he didn't know he felt badly. This, for Patricia, induced guilt. Another kind of emotional pain.